Mediation planned in sexual harassment case

By ALAN JOHNSON

The women are each seeking $300,000 to settle the case.

COLUMBUS — Niki Schwartz, the Cleveland lawyer who helped negotiate a peaceful end to the 1993 Lucasville prison riot, will mediate a settlement of two sexual-harassment cases in the attorney general’s office.

Sessions will begin Aug. 18 to resolve complaints by Cindy Stankoski and Vanessa Stout.

The women’s complaints filed against Anthony Gutierrez, then head of general services for former Attorney General Marc Dann, were the first trickle in what became a tidal wave of charges about sexual harassment, cronyism and misuse of public funds that led to Dann’s resignation on May 14.

Gutierrez and Leo Jennings III, Dann’s communication director, were fired. A third administrator, Edgar C. Simpson, chief of staff, was allowed to resign. Gutierrez is from Liberty and Jennings from Poland.

A subsequent internal investigation concluded that Stankoski and Stout — Stout is formerly of Masury — had been sexually harassed and that the Dann administration fostered a “hostile work environment” that allowed the behavior to go unabated.

Stankoski and Stout are asking for settlements of $300,000 apiece, plus $75,000 in attorney fees.

Schwartz, as one business publication phrased it, “specializes in working out messy situations.”

In addition to negotiating with prisoners to end the deadly riot at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility, Schwartz also has handled a case involving a teen mother who killed her baby, challenged a ban on sales of men’s magazines at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport, and mediated a dispute in which a raccoon’s head was mailed to a school principal during a teachers strike.

New Attorney General Nancy H. Rogers, appointed by Gov. Ted Strickland after Dann’s resignation, agreed last month to mediation to settle the complaints.

Lawyers Jeffrey H. Hiller of Columbus and Suellen Oswald of Cleveland, both with the firm of Littler Mendelson, will be paid up to $20,000 to represent the attorney general’s office in the negotiations with Rex Elliott, a Columbus lawyer hired by Stankoski and Stout.

The mediation is not binding, leaving open the option for Elliott to file a lawsuit if the talks fail.

ajohnson@dispatch.com