A Connecticut state rep. charged with fraud has resigned his city job

WSHU | By Davis Dunavin

Published October 22, 2021 at 5:55 PM EDT

A Democratic State Representative in Connecticut resigned from his job with the city of West Haven after he was arrested by the FBI for wire fraud.

Representative Michael DiMassa worked for the city of West Haven for 12 years. He was charged this week with defrauding his city of more than $600,000 in COVID-19 relief money.

The federal charges allege he started billing the city’s COVID-19 Grant Department for consultancy services through an LLC in January.

The FBI said he spent some of that money on gaming chips at the Mohegan Sun casino.

State House leaders said DiMassa has been stripped of his committee and leadership assignments. And he could face up to 20 years in prison if found guilty.
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Davis Dunavin

Davis Dunavin loves telling stories, whether on the radio or around the campfire. He fell in love with sound-rich radio storytelling while working as an assistant reporter at KBIA public radio in Columbia, Missouri. Before coming back to radio, he worked in digital journalism as the editor of Newtown Patch. As a freelance reporter, his work for WSHU aired nationally on NPR. Davis is a proud graduate of the University of Missouri School of Journalism; he started in Missouri and ended up in Connecticut, which, he'd like to point out, is the same geographic trajectory taken by Mark Twain.

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