Impeach Dann? Elections chief has her doubts

By REGINALD FIELDS

Gutierrez hired the administrative assistant in July at $33,280 a year.

COLUMBUS — An attorney general’s office secretary who worked for a manager who was fired last week has been suspended for having information on her state computer erased.

Kathleen Walley was suspended April 21. She is accused of having information on her state computer about a construction company owned by her former boss, Anthony Gutierrez, and erasing the information as investigators closed in.

“She had her computer wiped clean” by employees from the Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation, “and she did not have the authority to do that,” Ted Hart, spokesman for the attorney general’s office, said Thursday.

The bureau is part of the attorney general’s office.

Walley, 43, who works in the attorney general’s Youngstown office, may have been a former employee of Gutierrez’ construction company, Hart said. She could not be reached to comment.

Gutierrez, 50, of the Youngstown area, had been director of general services in the attorney general’s office. He ran a construction company when he was hired in February 2007 by his close friend Attorney General Marc Dann.

Gutierrez hired Walley in July as an administrative assistant. She is paid $33,280 a year.

Gutierrez was fired last Friday for office violations after two other women on his staff accused him of sexual harassment.

An internal investigation completed last week said he had harassed and improperly fraternized with employees, improperly used state property and conducted personal business on state time, among other problems.

The attorney general’s office released a report of the investigation as well as exhibits and transcripts of interviews with workers.

One worker told investigators that Gutierrez seemed at times to be doing both state and personal work from his state office in Columbus.

“It appears as if he was running his construction business out of the state office,” said Mariellen Aranda, another administrative assistant. “There are constant phone calls, either on his personal cell [or] from his desk phone.”

Aranda said Gutierrez had another state worker do blueprints and that it “was very clear they were for his construction business.”

A list of exhibits released with the report includes Gutierrez’s phone records and job estimates for Youngstown-area projects on the letterhead of Gutierrez’s MTV Construction company.

The documents — and printouts of computer file directories — appear to have come from Gutierrez’s state computer.

The Ohio State Highway Patrol is already investigating him for accidents he had while driving state vehicles and whether he was driving drunk, the attorney general’s office has said.

He is also being investigated for running the private business on state time. And now Walley is being investigated for helping him, Hart said.

In a letter dated April 30, nine days after she was placed on paid suspension, the office informed Walley that she may have violated office policies such as neglect of duty and misfeasance.

If the accusations are proved, she could be disciplined or dismissed, the letter states.