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Top aide is accused of sexual harassment
By Dennis J. Willard
Beacon Journal staff writer
Published on Sunday, Apr 13, 2008
COLUMBUS: In 2006, Democrats used Republican scandals at the Statehouse and discontent with the White House to win races for governor, secretary of state, treasurer and attorney general while picking up seven seats in the Ohio House.
Yes, kudos could be extended to Ted Strickland for running an efficient gubernatorial campaign and Chris Redfern, Ohio Democratic Party chairman, for organization, fundraising and other support, but most loyalists understand no one did more to help their cause than Marc Dann.
After the Tom Noe coin scandal broke, Dann was relentless in using his public platform as a state senator and his experience as a lawyer to keep the Republican story front and center on a seemingly daily basis.
And when Dann used video of Noe and his opponent, Betty Montgomery, late in the campaign and secured an upset victory over a candidate who had won three statewide races by huge margins in the past, Democrats were elated.
Around the Statehouse, he was humorously referred to as the ''accidental AG.''
The relentlessness did not abate upon being sworn into office.
For the past 16 months, Dann has pursued a career not dissimilar to Eliot Spitzer's reign as attorney general in New York.
Dann has investigated, sued and settled with major industries on behalf of consumers. He's taken on insurance and pharmaceutical companies, gambling concerns, and subprime mortgage and payday lenders, to name just a few.
But since last week, when the Columbus Dispatch broke the story of alleged sexual harassment by one of Dann's top supervisors, the accidental AG is now being compared to the humiliated Spitzer for all the worst reasons.
Republicans are relishing the unfolding story in Dann's office, while Democrats around the Statehouse feel, like so many of the Spitzer true believers, betrayed by the emerging scandal.
Two 26-year-old women — Cindy Stankoski and Vanessa Stout in Dann's office — allege that Anthony Gutierrez, the AG's general services director, harassed them by asking for sexual favors while explaining they owed their jobs to him.
Gutierrez and Dann are old friends from Liberty near Youngstown. They shared a condo in Dublin, a Columbus suburb, with Leo Jennings, the attorney general's spokesman and longtime political adviser.
Last September, the complaint claims, Gutierrez and Stankoski had drinks together at a downtown Columbus restaurant frequented by lobbyists, lawmakers and other politicos and they ended up, at Dann's invitation, in the Dublin condo.
Stankoski, according to the complaint, had drunk too much and lay down in a bedroom, only to wake up and find three of the buttons on her pants undone and Gutierrez lying next to her in nothing but underwear.
When she and Stout approached Angela Smedlund, Dann's equal employment officer, to file a complaint, they allegedly were asked to handle the matter without creating a
trail of public documents.
Stankoski provided Smedlund with an additional piece of titillating information. She said that at the condo that night, she observed Dann's scheduler, Jessica Utovich, clad only in ''pjs'' enter one of the rooms and plop down on the floor to work on a laptop computer.
This story would have been red meat for Dann in 2006.
Now that he is on the other side of the attorney general's door, he took the following steps:
Gutierrez was placed on paid leave. Dann asked Ben Espy and Julie Pfeiffer, two attorneys in his office, to investigate.
Dann has recused himself because he will be interviewed for the investigation. Jennings, his chief spokesman, will no longer be able to talk to the press and public about the sexual harassment case because he, too, will be interviewed.
This does not portend well for Dann. It is difficult enough for him to justify an internal investigation, but his recusal means at the minimum he is a witness with some first-hand knowledge.
It would have been easier for Dann to state he didn't know that Gutierrez allegedly harassed Stankoski and Stout in the office, over the phone, or at bars.
But the charge includes a night at the condo with Dann present.
More troubling for Dann are the questions that must be answered about his former scheduler.
The story of her attire at the condo appeared to be somewhat softened when the Dispatch reported that Smedlund wrote down ''pjs'' when Stankoski actually said she saw Utovich in ''sweats.''
But Stout told the Dispatch that she lived across the parking lot from the condo and on several visits saw Utovich there dressed casually. On other occasions, Stout said she saw Utovich leaving the condo early in the morning.
Dann's office is not denying this, but rather explaining it by stating Utovich could have been dropping off paperwork at the condo.
What would Dann have done with that story two years ago?
Dennis J. Willard can be reached at 614-224-1613 or dwillard@thebeaconjournal.com.
COLUMBUS: In 2006, Democrats used Republican scandals at the Statehouse and discontent with the White House to win races for governor, secretary of state, treasurer and attorney general while picking up seven seats in the Ohio House.
Get the full article here.
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