Purchasing agents for the Ohio Department of Transportation directed contracts to vendors who repaid them with daylong boating trips, hotel rooms in Las Vegas and lap dances from strippers, according to an investigative report released today.
Inspector General Thomas P. Charles' office found that the Department of Transportation's purchasing operation in Garfield Heights, near Cleveland, had become thoroughly corrupted. In one case, a purchasing agent paid $14,000 for oil absorbents that were never delivered -- nor were the products even expected.
"We found the two departments to be so riddled with fraud, corruption and depravity that few of the contract relationships the two men maintained with the dozens of vendors with whom they did business were arms-length or untainted by personal greed," the inspector general's report said of district Facilities Manager Dennis L. Kratochvil and Equipment Superintendent Terrence M. (Terry) Kosmata.
Both employees, and five others who allegedly participated in the bid-rigging scheme, have been fired. Another employee who played a minor role in the scandal was suspended, ODOT spokesman Scott Varner said this morning.
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