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E-mails between Dann, Utovich released
The office released about 2,200 e-mails between the attorney general and his former scheduler.
YOUNGSTOWN — Attorney General Marc Dann’s then-scheduler chastised him in a Sept. 4 e-mail for “taking things out on me and other people here.”
Two days after that, on Sept. 6, Jessica Utovich wrote Dann, a Liberty Democrat, that she didn’t “appreciate being yelled at in front of everyone.”
In between, Dann sent an e-mail to Utovich: “You are the bff” (text-speak for “best friend forever”).
Some of the e-mails show a curious relationship between Dann and Utovich, of Columbus.
In some e-mails, the two joke with each other, but others show an emotional boss-worker relationship.
In the Sept. 4 e-mail to Dann, Utovich wrote: “Please do not EVER tell me to stop acting emotional. I try to do my job to the best that I can and you s--- on it. I try my hardest to make sure you are taken care of, do what you need too (sic) and prioritize only to have you complain and change everything without telling anybody. Your emotional crap is what makes everyone else so miserable.”
A Sept. 19 e-mail to Dann from Utovich reads: “You realize everytime [sic] that you tell someone to do something re: your schedule, within this office, it allows them to continue to go behind our backs and create more problems.”
On Monday, the attorney general’s office complied with a massive records request from many media outlets, including The Vindicator, seeking e-mails between Dann, 46, and Utovich, 28. The office released about 2,200 e-mails between the two from last September through November.
Held back were 19 e-mails; 11 were about an “office-related funeral”; four involved appointments with doctors; and four were to Dann’s children. Most of the e-mails are mundane with Utovich doing her job as Dann’s scheduler.
According to complaints filed with the office’s Equal Employment Opportunity officer, Utovich, who is now the office’s travel director, was at a Dublin condominium Sept. 10 that Dann shared with Anthony S. Gutierrez of Liberty and Leo Jennings III of Poland, two of the office’s high-level managers and the attorney general’s longtime friends. On that day, Cindy Stankoski, 26, of New Albany, an office worker, contends Gutierrez, 50, her supervisor, took her drinking and brought her to the condo.
Dann called Gutierrez and invited the two for pizza on Sept. 10, Stankoski said in her complaint, and when she asked to lie down, Stankoski later found herself in Gutierrez’s bed with him in the room.
Stankoski filed a report Friday with the Columbus Police Department accusing Gutierrez of sexual harassment, with the condo incident included in the report. No charges have been filed as of Monday.
Also, Stankoski and Vanessa Stout, 26, of Dublin, formerly of Masury, filed sexual-harassment complaints against Gutierrez, the office’s director of general services and their boss.
The office is conducting an internal investigation into the claims. Gutierrez is on paid suspension from his $87,500-a-year job. The office also suspended Jennings, 52, Dann’s communications director, who makes $102,000 annually. The office won’t discuss why Jennings was suspended except to state that it’s related to the sexual-harassment investigation.
Jennings and Gutierrez have been questioned in the investigation as have Stankoski and Stout. Dann is expected to be questioned today, and the two women are expected to answer additional questions today.
The investigation is expected to be completed in another week to 10 days.
The women, who receive $14 an hour, also filed complaints with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
Stout said she went to the condo a few times and described Dann, Gutierrez and Jennings as “pigs” who “all drank a lot.”
In what appears to be a response to a question, Utovich wrote a Sept. 27 e-mail to Dann and Colleen K. Brown, Dann’s executive assistant, that read: “Unionize women in this place? You can’t have a conversation about anything serious with any of the guys that work here without them laughing.”
A number of the e-mails between Dann and Utovich are informal, consistent with previous Dann e-mails released by his office at the request of the media.
“Answer your text punk,” Utovich wrote Sept. 25 to Dann.
In an Oct. 10 e-mail exchange, Utovich wrote to Dann: “You look nice in the wsj (The Wall Street Journal) picture. Mean look. Grrr....”
Dann responded: “FAT.”
The two exchanged numerous late-night e-mails on Oct. 16. One sent by Utovich at 11:10 p.m. reads: “I’m cranky. The office is not so comfy to sleep in.”
In response, Dann wrote, “Use the couch.” She replied, “Use the bathroom. Locked. I don’t have your keys.”
Brown wrote in a Sept. 28 e-mail that Utovich shouldn’t provide such detailed descriptions of Dann’s schedule because some high-level managers were concerned “that this information should not get out to the general public. You know, all the bad people will come and get them.”
Dann, a vocal advocate of open records, wrote Sept. 27 that reporters “are missing stories everyday in our office by relying on public records requests rather than developing sources and asking questions of pios (public information officers). We developed the public records policy to encourage dialogue and good faith negotiation between requestor and gov agency in order to get requestors the information they need as soon as possible with minimum cost to the taxpayers. Lazy reports who fail to engage the human beings in state agencies are missing stories.”
skolnick@vindy.com
XCONTRIBUTOR: Marc Kovacs, Columbus correspondent