A measure of the failure of the state’s financial oversight in West Haven. You remember West Haven. When last heard from, former state Representative Michael DiMassa, a city employee, was charged with embezzling $635,000 of Covid relief funds from the coffers of the city that has been under the state’s financial control since 2017.

Monday night’s city council meeting revealed abuse of the city’s credit card. The use of the city’s credit card far exceeds the receipts in the municipal government’s possession.

How bad is it? The state’s budget director, Melissa McCaw, had to get out her sickbed (she’s suffering from COVID and missed a budget presentation today) to address the latest crisis in West Haven. After learning of the council meeting revelations, McCaw told OPM’s municipal oversight board, ” Immediate action in West Haven has been taken at the direction of OPM. A follow-up correspondence from me to the MARB will be forthcoming to update you accordingly. Please stay tuned.”

The long Monday meeting is preserved on YouTube.

By the summer of 2020, contractors and labor organizations were alarmed at abuses they were witnessing in the state’s school construction program. They were frustrated by “a shroud of secrecy over this Trade Labor List or State Contract List.” They had specific concerns and solutions. The association leaders were fluent in the substance of state construction contracting issues and, remarkably, unafraid to criticize two of Governor Ned Lamont’s most favored advisers, Kostantinos Diamantis and Josh Geballe.

The document above was prepared for the July 22, 2020, meeting with Lamont. It subsequently made its way to other state agencies. The document confirms that Governor Lamont was warned that he needed to make changes in his administration. In November 2019, the school construction program was moved from the Department of Administrative Services, where a state statute required it to be administered, to the Office of Policy Management. Diamantis, who had been running school construction, became deputy budget director that month at McCaw’s ferocious insistence. Lamont married that terrible decision to a worse one: allowing Diamantis to take school construction with him to OPM. Anyone familiar with state government at that time knew that Secretary Melissa McCaw was the person in the Lamont administration least likely to subject her close friend Diamantis to rigorous supervision.

Lamont failed to act and now faces the humiliation of a federal criminal investigation into the highest levels of his administration.

The governor can continue to avert his gaze, claim he knew nothing, and hope he gets to Election Day before lawyers the U.S. Attorney’s office begin marching defendants before judges to enter guilty pleas. There is another way. Lamont can tell the public what he knew and what he did about the warnings brave people delivered to his administration. As bad as knowing and doing nothing was, the governor not knowing that a rising tide of corruption was flooding his administration while people around him were eyeing the lifeboats is as alarming.

Published February 15, 2022.

And a joyful reminder that you never know what’s next:

Published February 14, 2022.

Judge Alice Bruno has been summoned to a place she has not been in more than two years–a courthouse. The absent judge left her Waterbury court chambers in November 14, 2019 and has not returned. She has been paid over $400,000 since walking off the job. Judge Bruno will have an opportunity to persuade members of the state’s highest court why she should not be removed the bench.

The Bruno story and the extended failure of frustrated the state’s frustrated court administration to take action was first reported in this Hartford Courant column. On Thursday, the Supreme Court issued a summons to Bruno, ordering her to appear before it on April 5th to show cause why it should not remove her for violations of the Code of Judicial Conduct.

“Specifically, Judge Bruno shall show cause why her failure to perform judicial functions for at least the last two years,” the Order to Show Cause states, “is not a violation of the following Rules contained in the Code of Judicial Conduct: 1.2 (Promoting Confidence in the Judiciary); 2.1 (Giving Precedence to the Duties of Judicial Office); 2.5 (Competence, Diligence, and Cooperation). Judge Bruno may be accompanied by counsel if she chooses.”

Published February 11, 2022.

State Senator Craig Miner (R-Litchfield) announced Thursday he will not run for a fourth term in the 30th State Senate District. Miner was elected to serve the 14-town district in the northwest region of the state in 2016.

Before serving in the Senate, Miner was a member of the House of Representatives for 16 years. He was Litchfield’s first selectman for a decade. He points out in his announcement that he has spent more than half of his adult life in public office.

The seat was held for many years by the late and beloved Dell Eads, the last Republican to serve as the President Pro Tem of the Senate.

Published February 10, 2022.

Two programs in OPM Secretary Melissa McCaw’s agency, school construction and the state pier project, are the subject of a federal criminal investigation. School construction has been taken from her after her deputy, Kostantinos Diamantis, was suspended in October. He retired but is seeking to return to his job as the head of the school construction program. The state pier project remains under her jurisdiction. This is unprecedented in a state that has endured frequent corruption scandals. Thursday’s Appropriations Committee meeting with McCaw provides a rare opportunity to pose questions and hear answers in public on matters of urgent public interest.

Here are some essential questions for McCaw:

Have federal criminal investigators contacted you about their investigation of the school construction grants program and the state pier project? Have you retained legal counsel to represent you in the investigation? Do your interests diverge from those of the state? Will you tell the public immediately if you are questioned or served an individual subpoena for documents?

Have you participated in complying with the subpoena served on the state?

How did you supervise Mr. Diamantis’s management of the school construction grants program?

Did you have any concerns that a Bristol company that had never built a school was hired without the benefit of competitive bidding to build a school in Tolland? Have you met Antoinette DiBenedetto-Roy of Construction Advocacy Professionals (CAP)? When did you learn that CAP was working on school construction projects and had hired your deputy’s daughter?

In a November 2019 memorandum of understanding, you and former DAS commissioner Josh Geballe extolled the advantages of moving the school construction grants program from DAS to OPM. Why was the school construction program returned to DAS after Mr. Diamantis was suspended and then retired? Why were the advantages you included in a memorandum of understanding no longer relevant to the effective administration of the program?

Did you participate in the decision to suspend Mr. Diamantis? Do you agree with Governor Lamont’s decision to suspend Mr. Diamantis?

Published February 9, 2022.

Whatever Governor Ned Lamont says while delivering his annual budget address Wednesday at noon, it is not likely to be remembered or repeated as often as his State Pier declaration that he made the speeches but “Kosta’s gotta deliver the goods.”

The State Pier project and the state’s school construction grants program are the subject of a federal criminal investigation. Kostantinos Diamantis, a top adviser to Lamont, exercised authority over both programs.

Published February 9, 2022.

The hiring scandal that has claimed former Lamont administration deputy budget director Kostantinos Diamantis will see others leave state government. The federal criminal investigation into the Lamont administration’s handing of the school construction grants program and state pier project will bring sorrowful headlines in the months ahead.

Chief State’s Attorney Richard Colangelo’s bitter departure from his office is imminent. Budget director Melissa McCaw may follow soon after, according to residents of the Capitol village.

In this interlude, Daily Ructions readers will enjoy a 1992 performance of the Boys Choir of Harlem and Betty Buckley as they join on two Stephen Sondheim gems, Our Time, from Merrily We Roll Along, and the eternal Children Will Listen, from the finale of Into the Woods. Sondheim died at his home in Roxbury in December. He was 91.

Sondheims’s wisdom endures. Careful the tale you tell, indeed.

“Careful the spell you cast

Not just on children

Sometimes the spell may last

Past what you can see

And turn against you

Careful the tale you tell

That is the spell

Children will listen.”

Republican gubernatorial hopeful Bob Stefanowski on Tuesday called on Chief State’s Attorney Richard Colangelo. A hiring scandal has engulfed Colangelo since October. A report from former U.S. Attorney Stanley Twardy issued a report on the investigation he was engaged by Governor Ned Lamont’s office to conduct into Colangelo’s June 2020 hiring of deputy budget director Kostantinos Diamantis’s daughter Anastasia Diamantis as a $99,000-a-year executive assistant.

Stefanowski’s campaign issued this statement late Tuesday morning:

“It has been a week since the independent report was released about the unethical behavior of Chief State’s Attorney Richard Colangelo, said Stefanowski. “Justice Andrew McDonald, Chair of the Connecticut Criminal Justice Commission, the Attorney General and the target of the investigation all indicated they needed time to review the 500 page report in order to proceed,” said Stefanowski. “It’s been a week of Connecticut residents questioning the ethics of the state’s top prosecutor, and that is a week too long. It’s time for Mr. Colangelo to resign immediately.”

Diamantis resigned shortly after being suspended from his job at the end of October. Twardy’s report revealed federal law enforcement authorities are investigating two programs Diamantis oversaw, school construction grants and a state pier project in New London.

Diamantis’s supervisor and close friend, budget director Melissa McCaw, was spared direct criticism in the public portion of Twardy’s report. Her actions are also thought to be under scrutiny. McCaw is scheduled to face legislators Thursday at a budget hearing. The meeting will provide legislators an opportunity to question McCaw on what she knew about the Diamantis’s handling of the school construction grant program and when she knew it.

Published February 8, 2022.

You’ve read the Twardy Report. Now follow the Twardy Rule. 

In the late 1990s, the investigation of a scandal in former Republican State Treasurer Paul Silvester’s office sent once-influential people to jail. Christopher Stack, a Darien financial consultant, paid Silvester bribes in bundles of cash. Silvester went to jail. Stack did not. Stack went to Stanley Twardy, a former U.S. Attorney and well-known criminal defense attorney, at the start of the scandal. Twardy negotiated a plea deal with federal investigators that won his client immunity from prosecution in exchange for cooperation. 

Twardy last week completed a devastating report initiated by Governor Ned Lamont’s office on Chief State’s Attorney Richard Colangelo’s hiring of the daughter of former deputy state budget director Kostantinos Diamantis while Colangelo was lobbying him for raises for himself and others. Lamont on Thursday called on Colangelo to resign. 

The bombshell report revealed a federal grand jury has been meeting and federal enforcement officials are investigating Connecticut’s financing of school construction and plans to expand New London’s state pier. 

For anyone who may be drawn into the muck, here are four words to live by: Get Stacked, not sentenced.

Navigating a federal corruption scandal is a tricky business. If you have reason to think you can get through it on your own, you are not as smart as you think you are. Seek proper legal advice. That means consulting with a lawyer with experience dealing with federal criminal authorities. The lawyer who handled your divorce can calm your nerves and refer you to someone else.

Tell the truth or say nothing. A false statement to an FBI agent is its own crime. You are ignorant of how much they know. It’s probably more than you think.

Do not destroy or alter records. Assume every document you have is available somewhere else. Emails and texts are documents. 

Assume your colleagues and friends have already spoken to investigators. 

People you once trusted may lie to you, including whether they have been interviewed by investigators.

The Wire is more than television’s greatest crime drama. People in a jam—and some not—do wear them.

You cannot be sure where this will lead. The college cash-for-admissions scandal came from a tip offered during a securities fraud investigation. 

Do not ask anyone to lie for you. 

Do not involve your children. If you already have, make a deal. The most excruciating pain law enforcement officials can inflict is moving against your greatest treasure, your children. Remember New York’s Skelos & Son scandal. A powerful state senator got his son a series of no-show/low-show jobs. Both went to jail.

It’s too late to destroy gifts. They will know. This is not the time to bury gold doubloons in your yard.

Avoid WhatsApp groups and other chat platforms but do not tidy up your Facebook page or Twitter feed.

Resist the temptation to contact the girlfriend or boyfriend you dumped—-after you were indiscreet in sharing details of choices you now regret. 

A federal criminal investigation can put relationships under more pressure than they can endure.

It’s a good time to stop drinking. In vino veritas, too much Blabbitas. 

Paying cash is not a cover for malfeasance. 

Do no favors in the hope someone will not disclose what he or she knows. Finding a job for someone with knowledge of crimes, for example, can be obstruction of justice. 

Federal investigators assume everyone in politics is corrupt. Charm possesses no power to persuade.

If you noticed something unusual in your local school construction project, call (800) CALL-FBI.  (Or e-mail kfr@dailyructions.com.)

Act your age. Side-sitting at a restaurant with a work colleague means you are not working. Side-sitting is an international sign that someone should be home with family. 

Do not have meetings in West Hartford Center. On any night there’s a higher concentration of state employees there than anywhere else in Connecticut.

Remember wisdom of the noble Gloria Burgle in season three of Fargo: You think the world is something and then it turns out to be something else.

Published February 6, 2022.