Utovich and Darcman’s Extremely Unprofessional Relationship
Published April 26th, 2008 @ 11:07 am. Tags: marc dannFrom Dan Williamson of The Columbus Other Paper:
But he’s also facing uncomfortable questions about his own relationship with his 28-year-old former scheduler, Jessica Utovich.
Utovich became a figure of intrigue after she was mentioned in Stankoski’s complaint against Gutierrez. Stankoski told investigators that when she arrived at the apartment Gutierrez Sept. 10, Utovich was already there.
This week, Dann’s office released more than 2,000 e-mails between the AG and Utovich. Redfern said the e-mails offer no concrete evidence of a romantic relationship between the two.
But they do demonstrate an extremely unhealthy relationship between a married, male public official and a female subordinate 18 years his junior.
While most of Dann’s e-mails to Utovich tended to be restrained, her computerized notes at the very least reveal a strong emotional dependence on the AG. She became angry when he left without saying goodbye. She frequently wanted to be included in his social plans and was hurt when he left her out. She made frequent inferences to being mistreated by Dann, at one point calling him “darcman.”
In one exchange, Utovich accused Dann of “carrying things over.”
“I may be,” he replied.
“I am too,” she wrote back, “but my face hurts and burns from crying and I can’t keep fighting.”
Whatever was going on between Dann and Utovich, it wasn’t appropriate for a professional work environment, especially the office of Ohio attorney general.
The emails show that Dann and Jessica were far too friendly and social with each other. I can’t imagine that Mrs. Dann is too pleased with her husband… and she would be even more upset if she had access to the emails these two sent using their private email accounts.
Wonder what the other few hundred emails that weren’t turned over after a full weekend of editing by AG personnel would have revealed. Come on…did anyone really think we would get a true and full disclosure?
This is from today’s (Sunday 4/27) Columbus Dispatch…for me, it sheds some light as to why Cindy Stankoski felt pressured to accompany her boss for drinks and then pizza and more drinks at his and Dann’s condo (to read the rest of the article click on this link:
http://www.dispatchpolitics.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2008/04/27/AG_CULTURE.ART_ART_04-27-08_A1_SLA1JEG.html?adsec=politics&sid=101
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Interviews with current and former employees of Dann’s, as well as hundreds of e-mail messages released last week and the sexual-harassment complaints, point to a casual work environment that often extends into alcohol-lubricated evenings in which work and personal lives blur.
Much of the time, Dann’s married, high-level aides — and sometimes the 46-year-old attorney general himself — were accompanied in their nights on the town by younger, female staffers.
Some of the partying went on at the Dublin-area condo that, at the time, was shared by Dann and two longtime friends from Youngstown: Anthony Gutierrez, general services director, and Leo Jennings III, communications director.
Both Gutierrez and Jennings, who initially denied that staffers ever socialized at the condo, have been suspended with pay in connection with sexual-harassment complaints filed by two 26-year-old women Gutierrez supervised.
The complaints have opened a window into an office culture very unlike what is known of the buttoned-up state law offices headed by Democrat Dann’s predecessors, Republicans Jim Petro and Betty D. Montgomery.