Dann contrite about time in office
He looks pretty much the same: boyish for 55 years old, glasses with thick rims, dark suits and colorful ties.
But Marc Dann appears to have changed from the bull-in-achina-shop Democrat who blazed through the political atmosphere as Ohio’s attorney general for 17 months from 2007 to 2008.
Nearly a decade after being forced to resign from a job he never expected to win, Dann has his law license back and runs a 10-person law firm with offices in six cities stretching coast to coast.
He showed up at the Statehouse last year for the first time, successfully lobbying for changes in mortgage legislation. And he won’t absolutely rule out running for public office again.
Still, Dann hasn’t forgotten the shame and embarrassment of his departure from the state scene.
“There probably isn’t a day that goes by I don’t think about the mistakes I made and the missed opportunities we had to do good things for the state,” Dann said in an interview with The Dispatch. “I have no one to blame but myself.
“I was a jerk,” Dann said of his time in office from January 2007 until May 2008. “I had an arrogance about me. ... I wish I would have learned to keep my mouth shut.”
While there were numerous players in the lurid Dann saga, none were more prominent than Vanessa Stout and Cindy Stankoski, 26-year-olds hired to work for Anthony Gutierrez, a long-time friend of Dann’s who was general services chief of the attorney general’s office.
Their sexual harassment complaints against Gutierrez resulted in an investigation that eventually led to the firing of two officials, the resignation of another and ultimately Dann’s resignation after Democrats in the Ohio House filed articles of impeachment against him.
Stout and Stankoski ended up splitting a $495,000 financial settlement from the state in their sexual harassment lawsuit.
While Stankoski, who has since married, declined to comment for this story, Stout gave the Dispatch a statement.
“If I could go back and do it all over, I would have just walked away. $250k was not worth what I have endured since 2007. I signed a settlement at age 26 that I had no idea what it would do to my future career,” Stout said.
“I’m now a liability and non-hirable to any company. Best advice to give anyone going through a hostile work environment, just walk away! Not worth the pain and anguish to not be able to find a job to provide for your family. No heroes were made in ‘the whistle blower’ process.”
Dann was a state senator from Youngstown in 2006 when he challenged incumbent Republican Attorney General Betty Montgomery. He wasn’t given much of a chance to win by anyone, including himself, but managed to pull off the upset. By Dann’s own admission, he wasn’t ready for the job as the state’s top law-enforcement officer when he took over in January 2007.
He acknowledged in his interview with The Dispatch that he was arrogant, strident and quick to criticize when he took office as Ohio’s 47th attorney general. He got involved in an affair with his scheduler and lived with friends Guterriez and Leo Jennings III in a Dublin condominium that came to be known as Dann’s Party Palace. Dann was married at the time.
Eventually, any good work Dann did as attorney general, including reforming
the process for awarding lucrative special counsel contracts, was overshadowed by revelations of sexual escapades, drinking, harassment accusations by Stout and Stankoski and eventually a cover-up.
Dann said was he was numb for months after resigning on May 14, 2008, and being stripped of his law license and livelihood. “There wasn’t a lot of things on the table for me in 2008. I had a lot of time to think.”
Dann was living in a converted garage while his wife and three children lived in the main house of their Youngstown area home. He spent a lot of time sitting around in a T-shirt and sweatpants.
That changed one day when he decided to do some volunteer work helping with legal cases involving mortgage foreclosures. It eventually led to his current legal practice specializing in representing clients with foreclosure and bankruptcy problems.
Dann says it has been a long road back. He said he survived through the love of his children and recent marriage.
Although Dann wouldn’t entirely rule out running for office again, he said it’s unlikely.
“I have some great things in my life. I don’t want to blow it.”
The door back to politics might not be open, anyway. Asked about the potential for Dann to run again, Ohio Democratic Party spokeswoman Kirstin Alvanitakis said the party has “instituted a rigorous vetting process for statewide candidates ... designed to avoid the errors of the past and ensure we have top-quality candidates who can withstand the sometimes harsh spotlight of a statewide campaign and also perform ably and ethically once in office.”
“It’s hard to see how someone whose last public act was resigning from state office in those circumstances could undergo that process and earn the support of our executive committee and stakeholders,” she said.