Michael DiMassa, a former Democratic state representative and West Haven political insider who stole about $1.2 million of the city’s pandemic relief money and blew much of it gambling, was sentenced to 27 months in prison Wednesday.
He also was ordered to pay $866,000 in restitution.
As the pandemic reached Connecticut in 2020, DiMassa was empowered by West Haven’s mayor to approve spending for prevention measures and other unexpected costs and had signature authority over the money.
He admitted conspiring with his wife and two others — including John Trasacco, a convicted felon who introduced him to a gambling ring — to embezzle the federal grant money by creating dummy invoices and directing payments to sham companies.
In a short statement before U.S. District Judge Omar Williams imposed an admittedly “lenient” sentence, DiMassa acknowledged that his crimes have contributed to the erosion of faith in politics and government.
“I gave them another reason not to trust the government — another corrupt politician,” he said. “It’s hard to find words to express how I feel — embarrassed, ashamed, mortified.”
West Haven Mayor Nancy Rossi, who put DiMassa in charge of doling out the city’s share of federal pandemic relief money, told Williams before the sentence was imposed that DiMassa deserved the maximum under the law — which would have been decades in prison.
As part of his community service to be fulfilled after release, Rossi said the city would consider using him to “clean toilets and pick up trash.”
“Our trust was misplaced,” Rossi said. “He’s a liar, a con artist and a degenerate gambler.”
Rossi said efforts to restore faith in West Haven, which has been fiscally challenged for years and under the supervision of state budget officials for decades, were set back “for a generation” by the “cascade of negative media” that followed DiMassa’s arrest.
DiMassa’s lawyer, John Gulash, argued to Williams that the embezzlements were largely attributable to his client’s out-of-control gambling addiction..
“Mr. DiMassa suffered from a debilitating gambling addiction at the time of the offense,” Gulash wrote in a long sentencing memorandum, “and his essentially unfettered access to a deep pool of federal funds and total lack of impulse control facilitated his precipitous downward spiral. The amount of money a gambler can waste is only limited by the amount of money that he has or has access to.”
Williams said the length of time DiMassa will serve in prison is shorter than it might otherwise have been because of the amount of restitution he was ordered to make and his cooperation with FBI agents.
He pleaded guilty to three counts of conspiracy to commit fraud and agreed to testify against Trasacco, the only one of the four who claimed he was innocent and who was convicted after a trial. Trasacco, sentenced to eight years in prison in April, got about $430,000 of the stolen money.
DiiMassa testified that he met Trasacco through another of the conspirators, John Bernardo, at the cigar bar Mickey Blakes. Before long, DiMassa was betting at what federal prosecutors alleged in a court filing was an “illegal gambling operation” at a restaurant in Branford, where he also was handing Trasacco city checks for pandemic-related services that the city never received.
Of their first meeting, DiMassa testified, “We talked. We got to know each other. We smoked. I believe we had a beer. … He told me that he had been in prison in the past.”
DiMassa was permitted to testify that Trasacco acknowledged having been in prison, but prosecutors were forbidden by court order from asking him about “organized crime” or Trasacco’s criminal history, which includes a half dozen prior convictions for crimes that include robbery and assault. When prosecutors suggested DiMassa may have conspired with Trasacco out of fear, U.S. District Judge Omar Williams closed the courtroom and ejected the public from what he said would be “a matter that is under seal.”
DiMassa admitted arranging three separate conspiracies to steal COVID relief money — one each with Trasacco, Bernardo and his wife, Lauren Knox DiMassa. DiMassa kept all the money he stole with his wife, most of the money he stole with Bernardo and hardly any he stole with Trasacco.
Bernardo was sentenced previously to 13 months in prison. DiMassa’s wife was sentenced to six months.
All those convicted are ordered to make restitution for the stolen money.
DiMassa was allowed to accompany his pregnant wife to Texas, where she turned herself in to begin serving her sentence on May 23. He will remain free on bond and ordered to report to prison himself at a date to be determined.
Before he was arrested and forced out of the state legislature, DiMassa held a variety of positions in West Haven’s government. He was arrested in October 2021. The others were charged later.
The embezzlement came to the attention of federal law enforcement officials through Democratic infighting for control of West Haven’s government. It resulted in greater state review of city spending by West Haven, a city that has flirted with insolvency and been subject to state oversight for decades.
DiMassa and Bernardo were accused of creating a phony partnership, Compass Investment Group, and using it as a vehicle to steal about $637,000.
Federal prosecutors said the two billed the city for a long list of services that included “as COVID-19 Legal + Lobbying + Site work for COVID-19 Clinic, Consulting Service-Legislative Review Executive Orders — COVID-19, Consulting Service-Suppo1i Staff Services, Monitors/Security Site (April 2021-May 2021), and Consulting Service Lobbying Service — COVID-19 Federal.” In reality, the indictment charges, the two did nothing for the city.
Bernardo is accused of getting about $50,000. When he pleaded guilty to a fraud charge earlier this year, Bernardo blamed DiMassa and complained he didn’t realize the extent of the theft until reading about it in the newspaper after his arrest.
“I had no idea what Mr. DiMassa was doing, how he was getting the money,” Bernardo said when he pleaded guilty. “When I heard it was between $500,000 and $800,000, I said, ‘What is going on here? Where is the money?’ ”
DiMassa lost much of the money he stole with Bernardo at the Mohegan Sun casino, where his purchases of tens of thousands of dollars in gambling chips correspond with illegal diversions from the COVID grants.
DiMassa’s wife — they were married days before his arrest — handed almost all the money she is accused of collecting, $147,776.10, to her husband, according to her lawyer.
Federal prosecutors said the checks issued to Lauren DiMassa under the heading “Youth Violence COVID-19 Associated Expenses,” included charges for “in-home counseling, cleaning supplies, special needs hourly service, WIFI assistance for low/moderate income families, counseling services, license fees, a fall youth clinic, meals, support group supplies, equipment rental, and youth clinic support group.”
Lauren DiMassa is accused of cashing 16 checks, keeping a portion of the funds and depositing the rest in an account she controlled. During the period in which the fraud occurred, July 2020 to October 2021, prosecutors said she did nothing in return for the money.
Trasacco is accused of creating two dummy corporations, L&H company and JIL Sanitation Services, that he and DiMassa allegedly used to bill West Haven for fictitious COVID-related supplies and services. Among other things, federal prosecutors said the two billed the city for cleaning a school building that the indictment said “had been vacant and abandoned for years.”
