A former Connecticut state representative has been sentenced to 27 months in prison for stealing more than $1.2 million from the city of West Haven — most of it in federal coronavirus-related aid — and using a good chunk of it to fuel his gambling addiction, according to federal officials.
Michael DiMassa, 32, a West Haven Democrat, was sentenced Wednesday to 27 months in prison, five years of supervised release and 100 hours of community service.
He is scheduled to report to prison on July 31.
DiMassa was also ordered to pay restitution of $865,844.45.
Get New England news, weather forecasts and entertainment stories to your inbox. Sign up for NECN newsletters.
“Mr. DiMassa suffered from a debilitating gambling addiction at the time of the offense,” his lawyer, John Gulash, wrote in a court filing, “and his essentially unfettered access to a deep pool of federal funds and total lack of impulse control facilitated his precipitous downward spiral.”
The lawyer compared DiMassa to Howard Ratner, the gambler played by Adam Sandler in the movie
“Uncut Gems.” He said he bet on things as frivolous as how long the national anthem would take to perform at the Super Bowl, or what color Gatorade would be poured on the winning coach.
U.S. & World
He did much of his gambling and betting at the Mohegan Sun casino in eastern Connecticut.
At the time of the thefts, which began in mid-2020, DiMassa was both a state representative and an aide to the West Haven City Council with authority to approve reimbursements for coronavirus-related expenses.
He pleaded guilty in November to three counts of wire fraud conspiracy, admitting that he and others billed West Haven for legal, lobbying and consulting services that were never provided.
DiMassa and a business partner, John Bernardo, also a former West Haven city employee, pilfered nearly $637,000, prosecutors said.
Bernardo pleaded guilty to wire fraud and was sentenced to 13 months in prison in March.
In a second scheme, DiMassa and another business owner, John Trasacco, were accused of conspiring to submit fraudulent invoices from Trasacco’s companies to the city, netting nearly $432,000 in COVID-19 aid, with nearly all of it going to Trasacco. Trasacco was sentenced to eight years in prison in March after a jury convicted him of fraud.
The final conspiracy involved DiMassa and his wife, Lauren DiMassa, and the theft of nearly $148,000, authorities said. The couple submitted phony requests for payments by the city related to a youth violence prevention program. The pilfered funds were not federal coronavirus aid.
Lauren DiMassa, who is pregnant with the couple’s second child, pleaded guilty last year and was sentenced in March to six months in prison. She recently reported to prison.
Federal prosecutors were seeking a prison sentence in the federal guidelines range for Michael DiMassa and wanted the judge to order him to pay more than $1 million in restitution to West Haven.
“The defendant was a public official elected to serve his constituents,” prosecutors wrote in their sentencing documents. “Instead, he completely betrayed that trust by stealing public funds for his own benefit."
DiMassa resigned from the legislature and the city of West Haven after his arrest in 2021.
He has cited several reasons for leniency including his lack of any previous criminal record, his testicular cancer and being able to care for his children.
DiMassa spoke outside court and apologized to the residents of West Haven.
He said he wanted the statement he made in the courtroom to stand for themselves but wanted to issue an apology on camera as well.
“But I felt it was only right to apologize on camera to the residents, to the constituents that I’ve stole this money from, they deserve that. They deserve my apology. The state of Connecticut deserves my apology, my former co-workers and colleagues deserve that apology and I didn’t want it just to be in written form from the court records. I wanted you to hear it from me,” he said.
“If there’s anything this case is a great example of, it’s that if you live your life and you make every decision you make like it could be on the front page of the paper every day, that’s the best way to do it,” DiMassa added.
If there’s anything this case is a great example of, it’s that if you live your life and you make every decision you make like it could be on the front page of the paper every day, that’s the best way to do it.
Michael DiMassa
