cleveland chose not to prosecute inspector Richard Huberty over pay scam allegations although guilty of taking bribes etc.

Courtesy of WYKC Channel 3Richard Huberty

The same Cleveland electrical inspector who pleaded guilty last month to taking bribes also pressured contractors to submit to after-hours inspections to boost his overtime pay, a city investigation has found.

At one job site last summer, Richard Huberty proposed a series of five or six evening inspections, each one requiring payment of an extra $100 fee, as a way for electrical contractor Paul Stolfo to atone for not obtaining a required permit, city officials reported.

"It sounded like he was going to keep extorting money from me for the rest of my life," Stolfo told The Plain Dealer in a recent interview.

Stolfo filed a complaint, triggering an investigation that found five other contractors who, during the first eight months of last year, paid $100 fees for late inspections that they had not requested.

Huberty's bosses concluded that the 16-year veteran of the city's Building and Housing Department [3] improperly collected overtime for six late inspections that the city found to be unwarranted. The overtime amounted to at least $400.

Law Director Robert Triozzi [4] found evidence to support bringing felony charges against Huberty but opted not to prosecute or recommend firing the inspector. Instead, Huberty was suspended for 10 days.

Huberty could not be reached for comment on this story.

In an interview last week, Triozzi said he ultimately decided the evidence was not strong enough to obtain a conviction. He also noted that a 10-day suspension is the most severe discipline -- short of termination -- allowed by city labor rules.

Stolfo likened the suspension to a slap on the wrist. He also said that the city officials sent to investigate his complaint repeatedly referred to Huberty as a good inspector and tried to get him to say that Huberty was trying to be helpful.

"I smelled a coverup coming," Stolfo said.

Inspector a figure in county corruption case

Huberty, 51, resigned his $49,441-a-year position in March before pleading guilty to bribery and extortion charges as part of a sweeping federal investigation into public corruption in Cuyahoga County [9]. Sentencing is set for July in U.S. District Court.

The conviction is one of the first to come out of the probe, which became public last July with raids on the offices and homes of County Commissioner Jimmy Dimora, Auditor Frank Russo and county employee J. Kevin Kelley as well as several contractors.

Documents show that investigators are focusing, among other things, on whether officials steered public contracts in exchange for gifts, meals and work at their homes. But the case against Huberty involved cash.

The inspector admitted taking money in 2007 to approve permits at the Stonebridge development on the West Bank of the Flats and to tip off the owner of the Mirage on the Water nightclub about future inspections.

All of that was unknown to his city bosses last July, when they received the complaint from Stolfo about an abusive Huberty pressuring the Akron contractor to agree to the costly after-hours inspections.

In an interview with the newspaper, Stolfo recalled being angrily confronted by Huberty at a West 65th Street job site. Stolfo said the inspector profanely rebuked him for lacking a necessary electrical permit and ordered him to rip out newly installed wiring.

Stolfo said he asked how he could "make things right." Huberty, he said, replied that he must pay the $100 after-hour fee and added: "And I'll be out five or six times."

Lawyer John Ricotta, who said he represents Huberty on the federal case but not the city matter, said the overtime issue is unrelated to the federal charges. He said his client would not comment on the city case.

Contractors deny seeking after-hours inspections

City rules allow for deadline-minded contractors to request inspections during evening hours -- generally after 4 p.m. -- of electrical or plumbing work. The inspectors get a minimum of two hours of overtime pay, and the city bills the contractors for the fees.

The five other contractors identified in the city investigation told The Plain Dealer or city officials that they did not request after-hours inspections and paid the fees only under pressure from Huberty. Here are their accounts:

• Louis Ross, owner of Atlas Electric of Cleveland, said Huberty approached his workers in February 2008, questioning why they did not request an inspection before burying conduit in concrete at the rebuilt Buhrer Elementary School. Huberty told one worker he needed to demonstrate how to snake a wire through a pipe -- for a $100 fee.

"He got a little bit huffy and let it be known that it was punishment," Ross recalled. "We paid the fine, because basically that's what it was."

• Robert Behers, owner of Behers Electric of Pittsburgh, said his workers were building a concrete pad for a cell phone tower's emergency generator on Walworth Avenue in January 2008.

"We dug a trench and called for an inspection in the morning," Behers said. Huberty arrived around 4 p.m. and announced he would need to charge the $100 after-hours fee or he couldn't do the inspection until the next day.

Behers said he agreed to pay because the weather was turning bad, a mixture of rain and sleet, and he was worried that water in the ditch would freeze overnight.

"If I had to wait, it would have cost me thousands of dollars," Behers said. "I wasn't happy."

• Michael Ohm, owner of Ohm Electric of Cleveland, said he had not requested an inspection for work at an old YMCA building on Franklin Avenue. Yet Huberty showed up after 4 p.m. on May 2 of last year, insisting on doing an overtime inspection.

• Workers from Arrow Wiring Contractors of Columbia Township and Globe Electric of Strongsville were wiring booth and carnival rides for last summer's Feast of the Assumption on Mayfield Road. Officials from both companies told city investigators that they were expecting Huberty on the morning of Aug. 15, but he arrived at 4 p.m. and did the inspections, charging evening fees to both companies.

When questioned by his bosses, records show, Huberty denied coercing the contractors into late inspections. He said he was trying to help them resolve problems of their own making.

Ron O'Leary, the city's deputy director of building and housing, disagreed in his report: "We find it unlikely that each of these contractors misinterpreted your offer and more likely that you did pressure them for the after-hours inspections."

O'Leary, a former municipal court judge, went on to warn Huberty about the seriousness of his offenses.

"Although there were no criminal charges filed against you, the law director advised us that there was evidence to support charges that you committed felony criminal actions."

Department Director Ed Rybka said the city's investigation found no evidence of other inspectors abusing the rules regarding after-hours inspections. Rybka described Huberty as an exception to an improved work ethic in the department.

Councilman Michael Polensek, a stern critic of the building department, said Huberty should have been fired.

"There was a clear pattern here of him trying to pull a fast one," Polensek said.

Plain Dealer reporter Gabriel Baird contributed to this story.