Ken Kratz
Ken Kratz | |
|---|---|
| Calumet County District Attorney | |
| In office May 1992 – October 2010 | |
| Succeeded by | Jerilyn Dietz |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Kenneth R. Kratz 1960 or 1961 (age 63–64) Milwaukee, Wisconsin, U.S. |
| Political party | Republican |
| Spouse | Leah Kratz (m. 2017) |
| Residence | Wisconsin |
| Alma mater | University of Wisconsin–Whitewater (BA) Marquette University (JD) |
| Occupation | Attorney |
Kenneth "Ken" R. Kratz (born 1960/61) is a former American lawyer who served as district attorney of Calumet County, Wisconsin. He gained attention for trying a highly publicized homicide case, State of Wisconsin v. Steven Avery (2007), in which Avery and his nephew Brendan Dassey were both convicted. The trial served as the subject of Making a Murderer (2015), a 10-episode documentary series produced by Netflix.
Kratz resigned from his office in October 2010 after a sexting scandal; he had sent sexual texts to a 26-year-old domestic violence victim whose ex-boyfriend he was prosecuting. Several other women whom he met as district attorney also complained to authorities that he had approached them with inappropriate sexual behavior. As a result, in 2014, Kratz's law license was suspended for four months by the Wisconsin Supreme Court. In 2013, he settled a civil suit by the first woman who had brought the complaint against him.