Ohio: All corruption leads to Las Vegas

ODOT corruption ringleader sentenced to seven years in prison

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Dennis L. Kratochvil begged a judge for mercy Thursday in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court, insisting in an emotional speech that he was a law-abiding citizen his entire life until this one instance -- which lasted 10 years and bilked taxpayers out of millions of dollars.

But Judge Michael Russo wasn't swayed. He sentenced the former facilities manager at the Ohio Department of Transportation's District 12 headquarters in Garfield Heights to seven years in prison for orchestrating an elaborate bid-rigging and kickback scheme that prosecutors say encouraged a culture of corruption.

Russo also ordered Kratochvil, 66, to pay an $11,000 fine in addition to $110,000 in restitution that he already has paid to ODOT.

Kratochvil pleaded guilty in October to 12 counts of tampering with records and one count each of attempting to engage in a pattern of corrupt activity and intimidation of a witness.

He had been out on bond while awaiting trial but was arrested last week when a probation officer notified Russo that Kratochvil had access to guns and could pose a threat to himself or others.

He appeared at his sentencing in an orange jumpsuit, his wrists bound by handcuffs. His lawyers, Michael Peterson and Paul Greenberger, pleaded for a compassionate sentence. They said their client has high blood pressure and a bad heart and would not cope well with prison life.

Kratochvil, his bottom lip quivering as he addressed the court, said he is remorseful and embarrassed by his conduct. But he downplayed the decade he spent in organized crime -- attributing his bid-rigging practice to a demanding project schedule and tight deadlines that called for contracts to be issued quickly.

And Russo said he wasn't buying it.

"It was a wonder anything got done out there because everybody was always trying to figure out a way to cheat the system," the judge said before sentencing Kratochvil. "You minimized your activity and said you were just trying to do a good job for the state of Ohio. I'm not sure how that was accomplished on Lake Erie fishing trips, going to nightclubs and receiving cash bribes."

An Ohio inspector general's report, released in 2008 after an 18-month investigation, said Kratochvil and his underlings used a wide variety of scams to steer millions of dollars in contracts to their associates between 1998 and 2007.

Kratochvil accepted Alaska hunting trips, Las Vegas gambling junkets, hot tub parties with strippers and cash bribes in exchange for state contracts. The investigation led to the indictment of six ODOT officials and 11 vendors in the past two years.

Kratochvil also was charged last September with placing a menacing phone call to one of the vendors, trying to intimidate him out of cooperating with prosecutors.

Assistant County Prosecutor Paul Soucie called Kratochvil the "poster-child" of corruption in Ohio.

"He was the ringleader," Soucie said at the sentencing. "He was the one who sat there and could have said no and done it right. But contract after contract, trip after trip, stripper after stripper, he didn't."