Helen Zervas, a Bristol eye doctor, pleaded guilty Tuesday to defrauding Medicaid and Medicare and of conspiring with two unnamed public officials to ensure that an audit of her optometry practice was cancelled in 2020.
In U.S. District Court in Bridgeport, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jonathan Francis described a scheme in which Zervas wrote a $95,000 check to the first co-conspirator, who then wrote another check to the second co-conspirator.
That payment, according to federal prosecutors, was compensation for the second co-conspirator pressuring Connecticut state employees to drop a scheduled audit of Zervas’ practice.
The federal prosecutors did not identify the two individuals that Zervas allegedly conspired with in 2020, but in a press release, the U.S. Attorney’s office said the two co-conspirators were a “Connecticut State Representative” and a “senior official in the State’s Office of Policy and Management.”
Documents reviewed by The Connecticut Mirror over the past two years show that federal prosecutors have subpoenaed a large number of records related to Zervas and the audit of her practice, which was uncharacteristically cancelled.
Medicaid overpayments are not uncommon, and providers routinely return such overpayments to the state-run insurance program. Some of those medical providers are also subsequently audited. But since mid-2017, the only audit canceled was Zervas‘, the CT Mirror reported last year.
Among the records that federal prosecutors gathered during the investigation are communications involving former state Rep. Christopher Ziogas, who is Zervas’ fiancé, and former state deputy budget director Konstantinos Diamantis, who reportedly attended church with Zervas.
Diamantis told the CT Mirror last year that he and Ziogas personally delivered a nearly $600,000 check to the state Department of Social Services in order to reimburse the state Medicaid program for services that Zervas improperly billed to the insurance program.
After that check was delivered to the DSS office in Hartford, the audit into Zervas’ optometry practice was dropped, which prevented state auditors from combing through her records and potentially clawing back even more money for the state.
Diamantis and Ziogas previously told the CT Mirror that there was nothing illegal about the $600,000 payment that was made to DSS, and they said their involvement had nothing to do with the agency ending the scheduled audit of Zervas’ practice.
“I do not know the DSS process,” Diamantis said at the time. “Those are DSS questions.”
“They can look at whatever they want,” Ziogas added. “I’ve got nothing to hide.”
Outside the courtroom on Tuesday, federal prosecutors would not say if Diamantis or Ziogas were the other parties involved in the alleged scheme.
But during the plea hearing, Zervas acknowledged that the goal of the alleged conspiracy was to have a state Medicaid audit cancelled. She also agreed with federal prosecutors that the $95,000 she paid to the two public officials was intended to bribe the second co-conspirator into pressuring state employees at DSS.
Federal prosecutors did not disclose all of the evidence they compiled against Zervas and the co-conspirators during the plea hearing Tuesday, but Francis, who is leading the case, said the material collected by prosecutors was “copious.”
Some of the records that prosecutors gathered, he said, included text messages between Zervas and the two unnamed co-conspirators. Those messages, he said, also included “admissions” about the goal of the alleged conspiracy.
According to federal prosecutors, Zervas wanted the audit to disappear because she was concerned the state could take legal action against her for fraudulently billing the state’s Medicaid program for procedures that were not medically necessary or were never actually performed.
In total, the federal prosecutors alleged Zervas fraudulently billed the state’s Medicaid program on more than 300 occassions between 2015 and 2020. She did the same for Medicare patients, but less frequently.
Zervas could face 70-80 months in prison, based on the federal sentencing guidelines, but prosecutors said they could seek to revise that sentencing recommendation.
It is unclear if Zervas’ plea deal includes her cooperation with federal prosecutors. Records show a grand jury investigation was active as recently as November 2024 when a subpoena was issued to the state ordering DSS to turn over Medicaid enrollment information.
Diamantis, who also managed Connecticut’s school construction office, has already been charged with 22 separate counts for extortion, bribery, conspiracy and lying to federal investigators in relation to school construction contracts.
A 35-page indictment unsealed by federal prosecutors last year alleges that Diamantis extorted contractors on school construction projects and then accepted tens of thousands of dollars in bribes and gifts from those companies. Diamantis pleaded not guilty to those charges and is free on after posting $500,000 bail.
Norm Pattis, who represents Diamantis, said, “After all these years and months of meetings and pressure on this poor woman, this is all the feds can come up with? The Justice Department seems desperate.”
His trial is scheduled for later this year.
This story was originally published in the Connecticut Mirror Feb. 11, 2025.
