This story has been updated.

If there is such a thing as a typical international fugitive, it clearly is not Konstantinos “Kosta” Diamantis.

He’s done at least three print interviews since fleeing the U.S. rather than face a prison sentence Thursday. He was live on WTIC-1080 talk radio Monday afternoon, and a television interview conducted via Facetime on Sunday was to air Monday night on WTNH, News 8.

In addition to the TV and radio interviews, Diamantis has spoken to reporters from Hearst Connecticut, the CT Examiner and the Connecticut Mirror. His intended audience is not known to be a consumer of news from any of those five sources.

Diamantis, who has a pardon application pending at the White House, acknowledges he is trying to make sufficient noise in the hope President Donald Trump will make his troubles disappear with a stroke of his black Sharpie.

“And if the president hears that message, which I hope he does in a pardon, then I would be eternally grateful,” Diamantis said in an interview with Connecticut Mirror on Monday.

He’s made a public a 10-page email broadly outlining his claim he is the victim of a “weaponized” Department of Justice and a conspiracy implicating the governor, three former U.S. attorneys and others. 

At the heart of the email is a claim he is facing retribution for his opposition to a no-bid contract for COVID-19 testing to a company with ties to Gov. Ned Lamont’s wife, Annie Lamont. The administration gave contracts to all four companies that responded to a request for a testing in the early days of the pandemic.

He said juicier stuff includes allegations and evidence in his pardon application.

“They’re in my pardon, and my pardon is not public,” Diamantis said.

The governor’s press office said the media should turn down the volume of the Diamantis show.

“It’s obvious that Diamantis is putting on this dog and pony show to try to win a Presidential pardon,” said Cathryn Vaulman, Lamont’s spokesperson. “If the media is going to give him the attention he craves, he needs to be held to some standard of proof.”

His claims of being a victim are generally consistent with complaints raised the night he was fired from a political appointment as the deputy secretary of policy and management and pushed towards retirement from his second job overseeing school construction grants. He described himself as a man who came to cross purposes for his bosses for the right reasons.

“I put information in my pardon. That is is not a public document, and to then open up those things in public defeats the purpose of it being something that they are investigating,” he said. “And everybody has to wait, I guess, including the public and you.”

Diamantis said he is opting for flight, a pardon application and media-tour-in-absentia due to lack of confidence in the federal courts. He said he is bitter that no mistrial was ordered after evidence that one or two jurors had read media accounts while sequestered.

He said the government’s claim he extorted bribes from contractors in return for help getting contracts was a public humiliation, albeit one attested in sworn testimony by three witnesses the government considered both victims and co-conspirators. The jury believed them — not Diamantis, who had testified in his own behalf. One of them was his former brother-in-law.

“The thought process was I just felt that I had been humiliated to the point where I needed to redeem myself and I needed a voice. I needed to be able to have a voice without fear of of retribution or reprisal,” Diamantis said. “And it was a knee-jerk reaction to do so, I suppose, but I needed to let the public know.”

Was he saying his decision to flee was knee-jerk?

Diamantis declined to discuss when he decided to depart for Greece, the nation where he says he currently is residing — and where was conceived. He said Monday his mother was three months pregnant when she and his father emigrated to the U.S., and his parents had registered his birth on a visit to their old village when he was 8. The registration was a prelude to his formal application for Greek citizenship and passport while the federal case was proceeding.

Diamantis, who is 70, divorced and the father of five, said there were two other factors in his decision to run: the conclusion in a pre-sentence report that sentencing guidelines called for a penalty ranging from 121 to 151 months in prison, and what his lawyer advised was that a judge was unlikely to leave him free on bail during an appeal.

He speaking out is evidence of a man trying to clear himself, he said.

“If I was a guilty person,” he said, “I would have come to Greece and never told anybody.”

Diamantis said his goal is to return to the U.S., but he has the resources and contacts to remain in Greece.

“I’ve come to Greece on many, many, many occasions since I was 8 years old. I’ve met a lot of good people, made a lot of good friends over the years here, in government and otherwise,” Diamantis said.

On one trip, the U.S. ambassador gave him an award for civic activities, he said.

“I’ve helped some villages with raising some money for roads and hospitals and water, so I’m fortunate these people are friends,” he said. “So I suppose the answer is yeah. I’ll find a way.”

He has declined to give his precise whereabouts in Greece or share details about his flight. He declined to confirm or deny the government’s claim that its investigation tracked him to Florida, then by boat to the Bahamas and a flight to London. It’s a colorful detail but not one that serves his immediate goals.

“I haven’t discussed my, you know, my travel plans like this is a Travelocity show of some sort,” Diamantis said. “It’s irrelevant to my purpose in all of this.”

On “Reese On The Radio,” the afternoon talk show on WTIC, Diamantis was slightly more playful as he signed off. He left with a suggestion.

“There’s a great movie. Harrison Ford is in it. It’s got a great title,”  Diamantis said. “It’s called ‘The Fugitive.’ Watch it.”

It has a happy ending for the fugitive.