Dann misused campaign cash, review shows

COLUMBUS (AP) — Former Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann used his campaign account to bankroll home repairs, pay for family vacations and buy his children pricey Christmas presents, according to a newspaper review of state investigative reports.

The reports are part of a complaint filed last week with the Ohio Elections Commission by state Inspector General Tom Charles.

Dann resigned in May amid a sexual harassment scandal in his office that included Dann’s admission of an affair with an employee.

Charles’ complaint accuses Dann of reporting incomplete, inaccurate and false information about campaign expenditures.

Charles used expressions such as “absolutely incredible,” “inconceivable,” “defies logic” and “difficult to fathom” as he described the scope of Dann’s allegedly improper campaign spending, according to a review of more than 1,000 pages of reports by The Columbus Dispatch.

“In Dann’s opinion, spending the money was all in a day’s work,” Charles said in the report.

Anthony Gutierrez, a former top Dann aide, said in an interview filed with Charles’ report that Dann and his wife misused the campaign fund.

“I’ve never seen people go through money as fast as them two in my life,” said Gutierrez, former general services chief in the attorney general’s office.

But Charles also singled out Gutierrez for criticism, saying he attempted to launder campaign fund money. When Dann spent $40,000 on a new security system and new windows for his house, according to Charles, Gutierrez had a window contractor add $5,000 to the bill.

Gutierrez then had the contractor cut checks to three businesses to which Gutierrez owed money, Charles said.

Dann also laundered campaign funds by paying communications director Leo Jennings $3,000 a month for “consulting services,” then having Jennings pay the rent and utilities at a suburban condo shared by Dann, Jennings and Gutierrez, according to Charles’ complaint.

Messages seeking comment were left Saturday with Gutierrez and Jennings.

A corporation that Dann established to pay for his inauguration and transition gave more than $12,000 to Zesty Dishes, a business owned by Dann’s wife, Alyssa Lenhoff Dann, Charles said.

In January, the campaign also bought more than $3,000 in dinnerware from the company that supplied her business.

The campaign fund also paid for a “family excursion” to a Utah resort and a “spring break vacation” to San Francisco timed with official Dann trips to those places, Charles’ complaint said.

Dann’s attorney, campaign finance attorney Don McTigue, said the complaint was baseless. Dann’s spending involved “lawful and appropriate uses of campaign funds,” he said. For example, the items purchased from Dann’s wife’s dish supplier were gifts for office employees or campaign staff members, which are legal, McTigue said.

Dann told The Associated Press in an e-mail last week that some complaints were false and the rest had no basis in law.

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