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Aide says Dann finds no anger in e-mails
Aide says Dann finds
no anger in e-mails
In a related matter Tuesday, Columbus police said no criminal charges would be filed against a Dann aide.
YOUNGSTOWN — Attorney General Marc Dann contends nothing in the 2,200 or so e-mails between him and his former scheduler was “written in anger,” a spokesman said.
But some of the e-mails between Dann and Jessica Utovich show tension between the two.
In a Sept. 6 e-mail, Utovich wrote: “I appreciate constructive criticism and confrontation when things are not working properly as I like to do the best that I can and try to make arrangements to your liking. However, I do not appreciate being yelled at in front of everyone.”
In response, Dann wrote: “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have had that conversation in that matter. I tried to talk to you earlier. You became totally defensive and my anxiety level increased dramatically.”
The same day, Utovich wrote: “My face hurts and burns from crying and I can’t keep fighting.”
The attorney general’s office complied with a records request Monday from many media outlets seeking e-mails between Dann, 46, a Liberty Democrat, and Utovich, 28, of Columbus, from last September through November.
When asked about the tone of the e-mails, Jim Gravelle, the office’s assistant director of communications, said, “It’s difficult, almost impossible, to interpret ... I’m reading them, and I can’t hear laughter or inflection. You don’t know the context of ‘you dummy.’ But not once did Marc Dann say anything was written in anger.”
Some other e-mails have the two calling each other derogatory names.
Gravelle said if an employee were being disrespectful, Dann would discipline him. That’s happened only once to the best of Gravelle’s knowledge.
In September, Dann put a letter of reprimand in the file of Leo Jennings III, his communications director currently on paid suspension. The suspension is related to a sexual-harassment investigation at the office.
The letter of reprimand from Dann was because of language Jennings used in an e-mail to Steve Lamantia, the then-acting superintendent of the Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation that was “inappropriate, unprofessional and unbecoming of this office.”
Jennings, 52, of Poland, immediately sent an e-mail to Dann apologizing to him and the entire staff for the incident.
As for e-mails, Gravelle, 62, who spent eight years as scheduler, press secretary and communications director for then-Attorney General Bill Brown, said he’d “rather go down the hall” to talk to someone.
“But I also get e-mails with happy faces on them,” said Gravelle, who described himself coming “from an older generation.”
The request for the e-mails between Dann and Utovich was prompted by complaints filed with the office’s Equal Employment Opportunity officer by two 26-year-old attorney general staffers.
The women contend Anthony S. Gutierrez, the office’s director of general services and their boss, repeatedly sexually harassed them.
One of the women, Cindy Stankoski, 26, of New Albany, contends Gutierrez, 50, of Liberty, took her drinking Sept. 10 and brought her to a Dublin condominium he shared at the time with Jennings and Dann. Dann called Gutierrez and invited the two for pizza, Stankoski said in her complaint, which also indicated Utovich was at the condo at the time.
When Stankoski asked to lie down, she later found herself on Gutierrez’s bed with him in the room, according to her complaint.
Stankoski filed a report Friday with the Columbus Police Department accusing Gutierrez of sexual harassment, with the condo incident specifically cited.
Columbus police said Tuesday that no criminal charges will be filed against Gutierrez.
Sgt. Rich Weiner, a police spokesman, said Stankoski’s story and the evidence that she presented were reviewed by several levels of supervisors above the department’s sexual assault unit, because the case was high-profile, to determine whether any criminal act had occurred, according to The Associated Press.
“Whether it be ranging from rape to sexual imposition, there was nothing there,” he said.
Also Tuesday, Stankoski and Vanessa Stout of Dublin, formerly of Masury, who filed sexual-harassment complaints against Gutierrez, were questioned for a second time as part of the office’s internal investigation.
Gutierrez remains on paid leave.
Dann was expected to also answer questions from investigators Tuesday. Ted Hart, the office’s deputy communications director, said he didn’t know if Dann was questioned Tuesday.
The interview phase of this investigation is winding down and a report should be released in about a week, Hart said.
Meanwhile, during a Tuesday stop in Youngstown, Gov. Ted Strickland distanced himself from Dann and his troubles.
“I have no direct authority to tell a constitutionally elected individual how to conduct their business and make their decisions,” Strickland said.
While saying that he is careful in whom he hires in his office, Strickland said that it would be “presumptive of me” to recommend steps that Dann should take to resolve his issues.
Strickland said he didn’t think the black mark on Dann’s office would hurt the Democratic Party. He said he thinks voters will see Dann’s troubles as a single episode and not reflective of the party as a whole.
skolnick@vindy.com
XCONTRIBUTOR: Don Shilling, Vindicator business editor