BuckeyeBlog

In reflecting on the Spitzer case, the Wall Street Journal commented intelligently on public trust.

In our system, citizens agree to invest one of their own with the power of public prosecution. We call this a public trust. The ability to bring the full weight of state power against private individuals or entities has been recognized since the Magna Carta as a power with limits.

Looking beyond the scurrilous and salacious details of the latest news about Attorney General Marc Dann, it becomes apparent that this question must be asked: has Dann violated the limits implicit in the public trust invested in him?

According to press reports and a complaint filed by two attorney general employees, Dann seems too close for comfort in a developing scandal involving his director of general services, Anthony Gutierrez. Gutierrez until recently shared an apartment with Dann and his spokesman Leo Jennings III.

The Columbus Dispatch reported:

According to the complaint, less than three weeks after Stankoski was hired, Gutierrez pressed her on Sept. 10 to have a drink with him after work. He took her to two Downtown bars before ending up at Mitchell’s Steakhouse. There Gutierrez received a call from Dann, urging both of them to come to the condo for pizza.

Though she was becoming intoxicated and increasingly uncomfortable with Gutierrez’s sexual comments, Stankoski said she decided to go along.

Dann must answer why he approved of Gutierrez’s sexual pursuit of a subordinate. He must also explain why his scheduler, who according to media reports was at the condo that evening wearing pajamas, received a 26 percent raise and new duties shortly after the incident.

Dann was at the condo when they arrived. Already there was Dann’s scheduler, Jessica Utovich, who, according to the complaint, “walked in w. pj’s and laptop” and lay down on the floor to work on her computer.

The following also allegedly occurred at Dann’s condo, according to the Dayton Daily News:

She said she woke up after a nap and three buttons on her pants were undone while Gutierrez was beside her wearing only underwear.

Another matter of considerable concern is handling of the matter by Dann’s office after Stankoski and other female employee Gutierrez allegedly harassed came forward.

According to the Dispatch:

Vanessa Stout, 26, and Cindy Stankoski, 26, filed the complaints against Gutierrez with the Equal Employment Opportunity office. They were surprised to be approached two days later by Angela Smedlund, the agency’s EEO officer, who acknowledged “a problem,” the women said.

Smedlund suggested that Gutierrez might be transferred and that agency officials would “do anything you want” to resolve the matter quietly without making it public, they said. Both declined the offer.

and…

Stout said in her complaint that Gutierrez, who is married, began pressuring her to go out with him and have sex with him shortly after she was hired. At one point, when Stout visited his condo with a friend, Gutierrez gave her a sex toy, she said.

Gutierrez called her personal cell phone so much, often at night, that Stout changed her number, she said. She offered dozens of pages of cell-phone records as well as a hand-written journal to support her complaint.

The attorney general’s human resources department “advised me that they didn’t want them,” Stout said in a March 27 e-mail to Smedlund. “Reason being, that all information given would be a public record.”

Marc Dann: constrained by the public trust, or, a poor man’s Eliot Spitzer?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 8th, 2008 at 2:07 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.