Accuser to take action against Dann aide

By ALAN JOHNSON

Accuser to take action against Dann aide

Columbus police will decide if criminal charges will be brought against a top Dann official.

COLUMBUS — One of the women who says she was sexually harassed by her supervisor at the attorney general’s office will file a criminal complaint against him today with Columbus police, her attorney said.

Columbus lawyer Mark L. Collins told The Dispatch that Cindy Stankoski, 26, will file a police report that has “probable cause” to support a criminal charge of sexual impropriety against Anthony Gutierrez, who is on paid administrative leave as director of general services for Attorney General Marc Dann.

Stankoski confirmed that she intends to file the complaint.

Gutierrez, 50, is the attorney general’s longtime friend from Liberty and a former Northwest Side roommate of Dann and Leo Jennings III. Jennings also has been suspended as part of the investigation of sexual-harassment complaints by Stankoski and Vanessa Stout, another 26-year-old employee in Gutierrez’s office.

“I have full confidence that [Stankoski] is making a good-faith effort in filing this complaint,” Collins said.

He said it will be up to Columbus police to decide whether Gutierrez should be charged and, if so, with what crime.

The incident at the heart of the complaint occurred Sept. 10, less than three weeks after Stankoski was hired by Gutierrez, according to Equal Employment Opportunity complaints on file with state and federal agencies.

On that night, complaints say Gutierrez pressed her to have a drink with him after work, she said. That turned into visits to three bars before Gutierrez received a call from Dann, urging both of them to come to the Dublin-area condo for pizza, according to her complaint.

Although she was becoming intoxicated and increasingly uncomfortable with Gutierrez’s sexual advances, Stankoski said she agreed to go with Gutierrez, who was driving his state vehicle.

Stankoski said that shortly after they arrived, she was feeling very tipsy and asked if she could lie down. Gutierrez told her to use his bedroom. She awoke several hours later, she said, to find three buttons of her pants undone and Gutierrez lying beside her wearing only underwear.

Stankoski said Gutierrez later admitted to her that he undid her pants and told her, in crude terms, that he wanted to have sex with her. He said he decided not to because he was her boss.

Gutierrez, Dann and the attorney general’s office have been unwilling to comment on specifics of that evening, saying the matter is under investigation.

In a related development, investigators at the Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation had problems extracting information from Gutierrez’s BlackBerry cell phone and appeared at one point to have shut down the device’s hard drive and erased information, attorney general spokesman Ted Hart said.

The technicians, however, were able to restart the device, and they “seem sure that everything is saved,” Hart said. “I don’t think it’s going to be a problem.”

ajohnson@dispatch.com