James Nash and Alan Johnson have a must-read in today’s The Dispatch about the frat house antics at the Ohio Attorney General’s office:

John Estheimer remembers it as the strangest job interview of his 30-year career.

Trying out for the position of Attorney General Marc Dann’s personal assistant in February, Estheimer said the Dann aides who interviewed him kept coming back to the question of whether he could tolerate an atmosphere of frequent vulgarity and sharp elbows.

During the two-hour interview, Estheimer said, he heard staff members in adjacent work areas shouting obscenities toward each other.

And the article mentions Jennifer Urban, the same Assistant Attorney General that I mentioned two weeks ago who might have something to do with why Dann put his spokesman, Condo-buddy, and former union-thug, Leo Jennings, on paid leave:

Jennifer L. Urban, an assistant attorney general whose tastes in hard liquor were revealed in the office e-mail messages made public last week, said the more informal and social culture of Dann’s office is preferable. Urban, 30, was first hired by Petro’s administration.

“Good ideas don’t always come between the hours of 7 a.m. and 7 p.m.,” Urban said. “If you’re friends with people, you tend to work with them better.”

Urban often socialized with the 52-year-old Jennings, the 50-year-old Gutierrez, Dann and Dann’s 28-year-old scheduler, Jessica Utovich. Some of the get-togethers occurred over drinks after work, while others ended up at the Dublin-area condo. Urban said business was discussed while they socialized at the condo as well. (Jennings, reprimanded by Dann last year for an obscenity-laden e-mail to the interim head of the Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation, had said workers visited the condo only for work-related purposes.)

During one e-mail exchange with Utovich that was copied to Dann and Jennings last October, Urban revealed her preferences in liquor.

“Jack (Daniel’s) and I don’t play well together. I rough house with the Captain (Morgan),” Urban wrote.

Read the rest of their article here, Especially about David Kessler, who was hired by Betty Montgomery to investigate crimes against the elderly, who quit because of the abusive, unprofessional work environment. And apparently, Anthony Gutierrez, the “big dog” genital services director who allegedly sexually assaulted a Dann staffer, would come into work with “vomit and boogers” on his nose after hard nights of drinking. Classy!

Clearly, Attorney General Marc Dann doesn’t have the type of respect for the office of Ohio’s chief law enforcement officer that Betty Montgomery and Jim Petro had. Dann transitioned from being a self-admitted mediocre divorce attorney who wasn’t even a partner, and seems to have, in a drunken stupor while uttering profanities, stumbled into statewide office. Dann is now a source of great embarrassment to the entire state of Ohio.

Back when rumors were first circulating, I tried to reach Jennifer Urban for additional comment via Facebook.com in hopes of setting the record straight about why Jennings is on paid leave. She declined to comment, and sent me this message instead:

From: Jennifer Urban (April 15, 2008- 12:33pm)

You are an ass. Are your taunts an enticement to sue you?

Attorney General Marc Dann has tried to make a name for himself by filing frivolous and excessive lawsuits. Apparently, Dann has taught hard drinking Jennifer well.

And I’m sure Dann wishes he could go back to the days when all he had to worry about was his hiring of a killer, a CPA who really wasn’t a CPA, and a double-dipping Youngstown Policeman. Dann’s vulgar outbursts no longer seem funny: