Taxpayer cost for Dann scandal could top $1M

By JAMES NASH and ALAN JOHNSON

COLUMBUS — An internal investigation’s finding that a “hostile work environment” existed in former Attorney General Marc Dann’s office essentially means the state found itself guilty of sexual harassment.

Now, it appears that admission by Dann’s aides could open the spigot for lawsuits from not only the two women whose allegations led to the downfall of Dann and three top administrators, but also from other women in the office.

An attorney for the two women said two to three dozen other female employees of the attorney general’s office already have contacted him about possibly filing harassment lawsuits.

Question: How much will Ohio taxpayers have to cough up for financial damages and legal fees?

Answer: a lot, maybe more than $1 million.

Attorneys for Cindy Stankoski and Vanessa Stout, the two women whose sexual-harassment complaints against their boss, Anthony Gutierrez, opened the scandal to public scrutiny, are discussing a financial settlement with the attorney general’s office.

Rex Elliott said he sent a letter Monday to Ben Espy, the lead investigator for the attorney general in the harassment complaints and the point man for the ongoing probes by Ohio Inspector General Thomas P. Charles and others. Espy asked for more time to respond and Elliott agreed: one more week.

“If these women could eliminate all this and go back to the point before this harassment began, they would do it in a second,” Elliott said. “But since they can’t do that, the only way in our system to adequately respond to that is a financial settlement.”

“Compensation is the only way we have to right a wrong in our society,” he added.

There might be other wrongs to right.

Mariellen Aranda, who left Gutierrez’s section because she said she couldn’t cope with the sexual comments and foul language, complained in her transcript from the Espy investigation that she filed a sexual-harassment complaint last October but that the Dann administration essentially ignored it.

Dann’s former scheduler, Jessica Utovich, with whom he was romantically linked, submitted her resignation in writing May 1 and said she attempted to withdraw it hours later at Dann’s encouragement. Aides to the then-attorney general, however, rushed through the resignation anyway, announcing it at a press conference the next morning.

Utovich now is talking to her lawyers about a possible lawsuit.

Utovich’s friend, Jennifer Urban, still works as an assistant attorney general but was stung by the office’s release of hundreds of e-mails in April, one of which referred to Urban’s tastes in liquor. Reporters had requested e-mails between Dann and Utovich, but many jocular messages to and from Urban were swept up in the same net.

Urban’s attorney, Vince Rakestraw, said Urban isn’t necessarily planning a lawsuit but could sue “if there are any future issues.”

More generally, however, Rakestraw said the state is vulnerable to lawsuits from current and former Dann employees because of the apparently pervasive misconduct and admission of a hostile work environment.

“The environment could be conducive to future claims,” Rakestraw said. “We know that lawyers are sensitive to bringing them.”

They would have no shortage of evidence. In interviews and reports compiled as part of the investigation into sexual-harassment claims against Gutierrez, several Dann employees described foul language, mistreatment of women and at least one sexual relationship occurring virtually in the open.

Molly Taylor, a former human-resources staffer, confirmed in testimony the accounts of others in the office that the higher-ups did little or nothing in response to the sexual-harassment complaints.