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Today is D-day for Marc Dann
A report on sexual harassment at the attorney general’s office is scheduled to be released today.
YOUNGSTOWN — Today is probably a day Attorney General Marc Dann will soon like to forget.
A report, along with a voluminous amount of supporting documents, is to be released regarding an internal investigation into sexual-harassment complaints filed by two female attorney general employees against Anthony Gutierrez, their supervisor and a friend and neighbor of Dann’s.
Even before the investigation kicked into high gear, the office suspended Gutierrez, 50, of Liberty, the director of general services and the subject of the harassment complaints, and Leo Jennings III, 52, of Poland, the communications director.
The investigation already has attracted a great deal of negative publicity for the office and Dann, a Liberty Democrat well-known for craving positive media attention.
Regarding the report, “there’s no good outcome for” Dann, said Paul Sracic, chairman of Youngstown State University’s political science department.
“Either the report will say these people he hired are guilty of wrongdoing,” Sracic said, “Or, if it doesn’t, the Republicans will jump up and down and say it’s an internal investigation with Dann’s office investigating him. It’s hard to see how a good spin will be put on it.”
The complaints also are being investigated by the federal Equal Employment Opportunity office, and with the two women retaining counsel, a lawsuit also is a possibility.
Dann, and his spokesmen, have made few comments about the sexual-harassment claims.
As for Jennings, the attorney general’s office has said only that he was suspended in connection with the investigation.
Dann is a longtime friend of Gutierrez’s and Jennings’ and lived with them for most of 2007 in a Dublin condominium.
The condo is where the most publicized incident concerning this investigation occurred.
On Sept. 10, Cindy Stankoski, one of the attorney general employees who filed the harassment complaint against Gutierrez, her boss, said he pressured her to go out drinking.
The two then went to the condo at the invitation of Dann to eat pizza. She said she woke up on Gutierrez’s bed with him next to her after she fell asleep.
Stankoski, 26, of New Albany, told Angie Smedlund, the office’s EEO officer, that Jessica Utovich, 28, of Columbus, Dann’s then-scheduler, was at the condo when she arrived.
That revelation led to a request from various media outlets, including The Vindicator, for e-mails between Dann and Utovich.
The e-mails, about 2,200 in all, were released and, for the most part, involve mundane business. But some showed a curious relationship between the two.
There is open hostility in some e-mails in which they call each other derogatory names, while others show an unusual closeness.
As for Gutierrez, Dann is being second-guessed about hiring his friend for the job that pays about $87,500 a year.
A background check by the attorney general’s office found 27 tax liens and civil judgments filed against him as well as a 2001 bankruptcy. He and his wife, Lisa, also owed more than $10,000 in back taxes to the IRS and $5,024 to the state for unpaid income taxes.
Also, Dann had picked up Gutierrez from the Ohio State Highway Patrol’s Canfield Post after the latter was charged with being intoxicated about six weeks before the former was elected attorney general. Gutierrez was convicted of a lesser charge, reckless operation.
In his job, Gutierrez was in charge of the office’s 254-vehicle fleet. Reports indicate he had at least three accidents while driving state-owned vehicles.
The release of the report will culminate weeks of speculation about the office’s operation.
A recent twist was an allegation by Stankoski that when she returned to work Wednesday after a short vacation she found her desk ransacked.
Rex H. Elliott, her co-counsel with John Camillus, said he believes the desk incident “is a clear act by someone intending to send a message loud and clear to [the two women] that their honesty and candor about the conduct of those employed in the attorney general’s office will not go unpunished.”
The second woman to file a sexual-harassment claim against Gutierrez is Vanessa Stout, 26, of Dublin, formerly of Masury.
In response, Ben Espy, executive assistant attorney general who spearheaded the sexual-harassment investigation, wrote Thursday that two other staff members also may have had their desks disturbed.
Also, Stankoski told John Hathaway, the acting director of general services, on Wednesday that she received a harassing call on her office phone, Espy wrote.
Security staff at the Rhodes State Office Tower in Columbus, where the attorney general is located, as well as the Ohio State Highway Patrol, are investigating the call and the possible tampering with the desks.
For Dann, today will culminate two-plus weeks of revelations and retributions, and it will be pivotal in his meteoric political career.
He swept into office in the November 2006 election defeating Republican Betty Montgomery, the former attorney general and state auditor at the time. More than any other statewide candidate in recent history, Dann focused on what he called a “culture of corruption” in Columbus and promised to clean it up if elected.
Though he didn’t specifically call Montgomery corrupt, Dann said if nothing else she was guilty of doing nothing while prominent Republican donors, most notably Tom Noe, a Toledo coin dealer, ripped off the state because of their political connections.
Because of his brash statements and his stumbles in office, primarily questionable hires, Dann has been the No. 1 target of Ohio Republican leaders. But during this investigation, state Republicans have been relatively quiet.
skolnick@vindy.com