Former ODOT exec sentenced

Dennis Kratoch nets seven years in prison.

(Cleveland) - Former ODOT District 12 Facilities Manager Dennis Kratochvil was sentenced to seven years in prison Thursday.

Kratochvil has paid $110,000 in restitution to the Ohio Department of Transportation and was ordered to pay $11,000 in fines.

On October 18, the 68-year-old pleaded guilty to 14 felony counts. The Chagrin Falls resident was the main target in this ODOT corruption case.

The Ohio Inspector General’s Office and the Ohio State Highway Patrol conducted the investigation. In April 2007, an allegation was made that Kratochvil had committed ethics violations by fishing with vendors over whom he had contract authority.

The investigation revealed Kratochvil at the center of a massive interlocking web of schemes involving ODOT contracts. For over a decade, he, former District 12 Equipment Supervisor Terry Kosmata and ODOT storekeeper Kevin Horrigan rigged and steered hundreds of competitively bid contracts to favored vendors in exchange for gratuities.

These gratuities included hunting and fishing trips to Texas and Alaska, gambling junkets to Las Vegas, expensive meals and bar tabs, boating trips and hot tub parties with strippers, and cash bribes delivered to Kratochvil at ODOT District Headquarters in Garfield Heights.

Under indictment, Kratochvil threatened another co-defendant who was also a State’s witness against Kratochvil. On the day this co-defendant was waiting on the judge outside the courtroom to enter a plea of guilty, Kratochvil called him on his cell phone and threatened his life.

Sixteen of the seventeen defendants in this ODOT case have been sentenced on corruption-related charges and have paid a total of $611,840 in restitution.

The center of this criminal activity was ODOT’s District 12 headquarters located in Garfield Heights. The case of ODOT vendor Dennis B. Kratochvil (Dennis L. Kratochvil’s son) is pending.

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