OH AG Office - E-mails between Dann & Scheduler No Smoking Gun

In THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH, those e-mails released Monday night between Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann and his scheduler are no smoking gun. 

DISPATCH reporters Darrell Rowland, Alan Johnson, Mark Niquette and Randy Ludlow title their article, "E-mails show familiarity, but nothing related to probe."  Their article starts out, "Nothing relating to an ongoing sexual harassment probe was immediately apparent in hundreds of e-mails unveiled tonight [Monday] between Attorney General Marc Dann and his scheduler Jessica Utovich."

For one thing, neither allude to the alleged incident on September 10, 2007 which took place at the condo occupied by Dann and the two employees put on leave with pay during the investigation. That night Utovich was reported to be at the condo.

The tone and content of the e-mails mirror what could have been communicated between a supervisor and an employee who had a close but not necessarily improper or even romantic relationship with a superior. For instance, she says, "You are so fricking mean."  That kind of banter can siphon off stress at work. 

Some of the communication mentions topics in passing, such as teasing about someone else's hair, which have no relevance to the probe or relationship, at least not yet.

Today, the police are due to decide whether the criminal complaint filed by the alleged victim will result in a criminal charge or charges.  If that occurs, then the situation escalates from an internal investigation to a criminal matter. 

What I anticipate is that some of the parties, including those accused of alleged sexual harassment, will sue the state and Dann.  For instance, Anthony Gutierrez was known to have or to have had a drinking problem, before he was hired by the state. Why wasn't this problem addressed by his employer?  Is his employer therefore liable for his possible criminal actions when he was allegedly intoxicated? Also, will any or all of the four bars he went to that night be sued for allegedly serving an intoxicated man - and woman?

Comments

[PPPPLLLEEEEZZZZ!!!]

Did anyone really think that emails that took over two weeks to be released and that were edited prior to releasing were really going to have anything juicy in them? I sure as hell didn't.

And if Utovich was able to fax his schedule to him one time, why not all the time?

(From the Dayton Daily News: And Utovich seemed downright frustrated when Dann left the office without his schedule on Nov. 2, 2007.

"Nice. F#$k it. Turn on the fax. I hope you get it," Utovich wrote, after complaining that Dann didn't say goodbye before leaving).

You don't drive from downtown to Dublin at 10:00 p.m. just to deliver a paper schedule...sorry, hard to convince me otherwise.

Entire article at: (http://www.daytondailynews.com/n/content/oh/story/news/local/2008/04/22/ddn042208dannweb.html?cxtype=rss&cxsvc=7&cxcat=16)