Hit-run crash is part of Dann office probe

By REGINALD FIELDS

The man did not file an accident report with police or with Dann’s office.

COLUMBUS — The suspended attorney general’s office manager who is already under investigation on sexual harassment charges and for damage to two state vehicles also may have been involved in a hit-and-run accident last summer while driving a state car, the office says.

Anthony Gutierrez is accused of driving off after backing into a truck owned by the father of one of two women who have accused him of sexual harassment. The accident happened just months before Gutierrez hired the woman, who was his neighbor at the time.

“I still want my truck fixed,” said the father, who said he watched as Gutierrez backed into his pickup truck last August and drove off. “My bumper’s messed up. They hit my truck all the way up on the curb. That’s how hard they hit it.”

He said the accident occurred at his Columbus-area apartment parking lot. Gutierrez and Attorney General Marc Dann shared an apartment across from where the man lived with his daughter.

The man, a retired state corrections officer, however, said he doesn’t trust the government or the justice system and refused to file an accident report with either the police or the attorney general’s office.

Dann’s spokesman Ted Hart confirmed Tuesday an accident occurred and released a partially filled-in internal report that lists Gutierrez as the driver of a state-owned sport-utility vehicle that had rear bumper damage.

Hart said the attorney general’s office did not complete the report because the man declined to cooperate, and Gutierrez did not seek to have the damage to his vehicle repaired at state expense.

Hart described the accident in similar detail as the man recalled and said Gutierrez was required to fully report the incident but did not.

The Ohio State Highway Patrol already is investigating damage to two other vehicles driven by Gutierrez and whether he was drunk while driving, Hart said.

“And now that this has come to our attention, we will tell them to include this incident, too,” Hart said.

Gutierrez, who earns $87,485 annually, manages a department with several hundred employees and oversees units including purchasing and the office’s fleet of 254 vehicles.

He hired the man’s daughter in November.

The attorney general’s office is expected this week to conclude an internal investigation into the sexual harassment allegations against Gutierrez, who was hired by Dann, his close friend and Liberty neighbor, in February 2007.

The patrol is expected Thursday to interview the other Gutierrez accuser, who said in her complaint that Gutierrez wrecked one state vehicle while driving drunk.