Gutierrez, Dann, Jennings reunite in court this week
Former Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann
Anthony Gutierrez
If convicted, Gutierrez could face up to eight years in prison and $20,000 in fines.
By JAMES NASH
COLUMBUS DISPATCH
Nearly two years after they partied together at a Dublin-area condo and touched off the most lurid Statehouse scandal in years, Anthony Gutierrez, Marc Dann and Leo Jennings III will be reunited in a Columbus courtroom this week.
Gutierrez, of Liberty, who was director of general services for Dann while Dann was attorney general in 2007 and early 2008, is scheduled to stand trial in Franklin County Common Pleas Court starting Monday on six felony and four misdemeanor charges.
Dann and Jennings, who was the Democratic attorney general’s spokesman and off-duty political adviser, both have been called as witnesses in Gutierrez’s trial.
The three lived together in Columbus during the week and usually traveled home to their families near Youngstown on weekends. All three played major roles in the first forced resignation of a statewide officeholder in memory: Dann admitted to an affair with an employee and mismanagement of the office, Jennings was accused of asking another employee to lie about their extramarital affair, and Gutierrez was accused of misconduct ranging from sexual harassment to fraud.
Only Gutierrez has been accused of criminal wrongdoing.
This week’s trial is expected to focus on a relatively narrow spectrum of misdeeds. The charges do not include sexual harassment; the two employees to whom Gutierrez allegedly made inappropriate comments and overtures were not called as witnesses. Nor does Gutierrez face any criminal charges stemming from his alleged drunken driving of state vehicles.
Instead, he’s accused of using state computers and time to run his private business, MTV Construction.
Gutierrez, 51, also faces charges of lying on workers’ compensation and financial-disclosure forms and of using Dann’s campaign account to subsidize living expenses at the Dublin-area condo.
He pleaded not guilty in May to all 10 counts. If convicted on all counts, he would face up to eight years in prison and $20,000 in fines.
The most serious charges accuse Gutierrez of lying about the number of employees at MTV Construction to lower his workers’ compensation premiums.
Gutierrez’s jury trial will be presided over by Franklin County Common Pleas Judge Laurel Beatty, a Democrat who Gov. Ted Strickland appointed to the court in February.
Franklin County Prosecutor Ron O’Brien’s office has subpoenaed 34 people, including several who worked for Dann in the attorney general’s office. Among them: Marc Polster, who was Dann’s information-technology director; Julie Pfeifer, a lawyer who conducted the investigation into sexual-harassment charges against Gutierrez; Brian Laliberte, who was a high-ranking lawyer in the office; and Kathleen Walley, a Youngstown-based assistant to Gutierrez who was placed on leave because she had allegedly scrubbed information from her computer hard drive without permission. Walley later was allowed to go back to work.
O’Brien’s office also has subpoenaed employees of Gutierrez’s construction firm as well as officials from the Bureau of Workers’ Compensation and the inspector general’s office, which led the investigation into misconduct during Dann’s 17 months in office.
Neither side is offering clues to their legal strategy.
Gutierrez’s attorney, Karl Schneider, did not return a call seeking comment. O’Brien, a Republican, declined to comment other than to confirm the trial date.
Dann also said it ‘wouldn’t be appropriate’ for him to comment.
In June, Schneider suggested that the Bureau of Workers’ Compensation exercised ‘disparate review’ by recommending that Gutierrez be prosecuted for employer fraud when many similar cases never result in criminal charges.
In fact, O’Brien brought the criminal case even as Gutierrez continued to appeal the claims as part of the bureau’s internal administrative process.
On July 15, Gutierrez formally requested an adjudication hearing at the bureau. He wrote that bureau officials had erroneously classified many of his workers as employees when, in fact, they are independent contractors.
‘MTV provided no training, no set hours and no devotional hours,’ he wrote. ‘A person has the right to choose which jobs fit into their schedules and if they personally will do the job themselves.’
Since losing his $87,500-a-year state job in May 2008, Gutierrez has returned to his construction business full time. Beatty noted in a July 20 court filing that ‘the issue of the defendant’s indigency has been resolved,’ suggesting that Gutierrez is no longer claiming to be short of funds.
Dann is working as a lawyer in Cleveland, while Jennings has tried to eke out a living as a political consultant in Youngstown.