At any given time, panels of citizens are called to serve 18-month stints on grand juries at Connecticut’s federal courthouses in Bridgeport, New Haven and Hartford. The public hears little about their work, which is largely performed in secrecy but is, says attorney Chris Mattei, “an extraordinarily important instrument” of our justice system.

As a federal grand jury investigates Konstantinos “Kosta” Diamantis’ tenure heading up state oversight of the Connecticut Port Authority’s project at State Pier in New London and major school construction projects in New London and statewide, we asked Mattei to tell us what he knows about grand juries. He also weighed in on the "deeply troubling" connection to Connecticut's top prosecutor Richard Colangelo.

Mattei, a former Assistant U.S. Attorney now in private practice with Koskoff Koskoff & Bieder law firm, served as Chief of the Financial Fraud & Public Corruption unit with the U.S. Attorney’s office in the District of Connecticut. He oversaw the prosecution of former Gov. John G. Rowland and others on campaign fiancé and obstruction of justice charges and supervised a ground-breaking investigation and prosecution of fraud in the residential mortgage backed securities market following the financial crisis of 2008.

Mattei currently serves as the lead attorney on behalf of Sandy Hook families and first responders against Alex Jones and the corporate entities involved in promoting a lie that the school shooting was a hoax.