Posted on 04/21/2008 9:29:00 AM PDT by freespirited
Columbus -- A 26-year-old woman filed a police report Friday about an evening of drinking last fall that she says ended with her waking up in Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann's apartment with her pants unbuttoned.
She filed the complaint against her boss, Anthony , 50, a top aide to Dann, who she said was lying next to her in his underwear when she awoke.
Columbus police detectives interviewed her but afterward released only a vague report.
The woman has also filed an internal sexual harassment complaint against Gutierrez and was interviewed by an equal employment opportunity officer March 31.
Gutierrez, who has been suspended with pay, has not talked to reporters about the complaints. Dann has declined to comment, other than to deny that his scheduler was in her pajamas at his Columbus apartment
Accuser's account
Based on the EEO officer's notes and text messages obtained by The Plain Dealer, this is the woman's account of the evening of Sept. 10, 2007, and the weeks after:
Gutierrez presses the woman to go out for a drink with him after work.
He wouldn't take no for an answer, she later told the EEO officer.
The woman is nervous. She sends an e-mail message to a male co-worker. He tells her to be careful.
The woman and Gutierrez go to The Ringside Caf , a cramped, dark-paneled, historic bar in an alley next to the Rhodes Office Tower, the state office building where the attorney general's offices are located.
Gutierrez brags about his power and his Youngstown construction business. And he talks about his hatred for his wife. They continue around the corner to another bar and restaurant popular with state workers, The TipTop.
Gutierrez's phone rings. It's a co-worker named Charlie.
"Here with a smokin' hot girl," Gutierrez says.
The woman says "Hi" to Charlie.
A friend from North Carolina calls Gutierrez. Gutierrez says he would like to take the woman to North Carolina for fun.
The woman feels tipsy and trapped.
They continue to a third bar on Third Street, at upscale Mitchell's Steakhouse.
Gutierrez s phone rings again. It ' Dann. The woman speaks to him.
"Having fun?" the attorney general asks. "Come over for pizza."
"Only if it's Hawaiian," the woman replies.
She tells Gutierrez she feels weird. He tells her she's with the big dogs.
The woman rides with Gutierrez to the apartment Gutierrez shares with Dann. It's in the far northwest corner of Columbus, a 20-minute drive from downtown.
They eat Hawaiian pizza.
Dann's scheduler, Jessica Utovich, is there in pajamas with her laptop computer.
The woman begins text messaging a friend from the office.
" Girl . . . im in a weird situation. .iem w marc dan. . . .drunnnnk," she says in one of the messages.
At some point, the woman steps out and calls a friend, who tells her that another co-worker could come and pick her up.
She goes back inside and says she needs to lie down. Gutierrez tells her she can use his room.
She thinks that he'll sleep on the couch. But when she wakes up later, at around 6 a.m., her pants are unbuttoned. Gutierrez is next to her in his underwear. She wakes Gutierrez up and says she needs to go.
Gutierrez drives her back downtown to the attorney general's office, where her car is parked from the previous workday. Both say little. He tells her to relax. She says she won't be in at 8:30. He says he will cover for her.
When she comes in a little before noon, the woman avoids eye contact with Gutierrez.
About three weeks later, on Oct. 3, Gutierrez, the woman and two others from the office travel to Cincinnati to drop off cars from the agency's vehicle fleet.
The day before, Gutierrez leaves the woman a voice-mail message telling her to bring nice clothes for dinner reservations.
In Cincinnati, the four travelers meet at a food court and Gutierrez mentions a business meeting. When the other two leave, Gutierrez tells the woman there was no meeting.
"We can do whatever," he says.
She tells him to take her home.
On the way up Interstate 71, they run into a huge accident. Gutierrez searches for a bar and ends up at Rackums, a Grove City bar featuring pool and darts, just south of Columbus.
He buys her a beer and, in crude terms, tells her that he hired her because of her body.
Gutierrez's wife calls. He screams at her on the phone.
Gutierrez asks the woman to meet him and Dann s communications director, Leo Jennings III, at Mitchell's. She says no.
Not long after the Cincinnati trip, Gutierrez repeatedly calls the woman from a restricted phone number. When he finally calls from a number with a 330 area code, she answers. He asks why she was ignoring him.
At some point, Gutierrez reminds her that she owes him because when she broke a camera borrowed from her parents, he took the blame. She eventually agrees to go with Gutierrez one evening to the Ocean Club at Easton Town Center in northeast Columbus with Jennings and another woman from the office.
At the Ocean Club, the woman steps out to smoke a cigarette.
Gutierrez follows her outside. He is drunk.
He tells the woman he knows her pants were undone that night at the apartment, but he didn't do anything. He wanted to have sex with her, he says, but he didn't.
In vulgar terms, he keeps telling her that, of course, he wanted to have sex with her.
She cusses at Gutierrez.
The next day, Gutierrez shows up at work, reeking of booze, vomit caked on his nose. He was so drunk the night before that he fell asleep behind the wheel of his state-issued Chevy Suburban, hit a guardrail and woke up.
Eventually, people in the office hear about the Sept. 10 incident. The friend she had sent the text messages to had kept them and turned them in to the human resources office. Gutierrez and Jennings may have destroyed them.
Gutierrez calls her into his office. He says that if the human resources department asked any questions, she should tell them a friend picked her up from his place.
You got it ... since there is no mention of party affiliation, they are RATS.
Well, then, all that will happen is he will say, “I’m sorry.”
Why did it take her 6 months to file a complaint?
How long did it take this woman to file this police report? Seems like she might be setting up a lawsuit. I’m quite suspicious when people file police reports well after an event.
How long did it take this woman to file this police report? Seems like she might be setting up a lawsuit. I’m quite suspicious when people file police reports well after an event.
Why is this coming out now? Friends of hillary or Obama, or just a coincidence?
Amazingly, I too was shocked that no party affiliation was given in the article.
Whew, it is such a relief that all this partisanship by the media is over.
And if someone “insists” that you go out for a drink, get a Diet Coke with a lime twist.
She may be fearful for her job, or she decided that since he would not leave her alone after the first incident, she had no other choice but to file a complaint. If he had simply left her alone after the first incident, she may have let it go.
Party affiliation is key in terms of how this may be prosecuted.
In the event that the perpetrator was a Republican this would be a felony. As it appears that this may be a Democrat, waking up in a stupor with one’s knickers around one’s ankles is merely another day in the salt mine.
Gee, you mean if you get drunk, men will take advantage of you? Who knew!
“What is the most important piece of information we learned from this article.”
I would be the first to not blame a woman for an assault, but she is clearly an idiot for going out drinking with this guy.
Reading between the lines of other stuff I’ve read on the subject, I am getting the impression that she complained internally and AG Dann just dragged his feet—so after months of that she finally went to police. Don’t know this for a fact but it is my impression.
Guiterrez has also been let off the hook for damaging a state SUV, apparently while drunk and using it for an unauthorized purpose.
This girl is only 26 and was in way over her head with some big shots who had power over her. I can see why she got talked into foolish behavior and was reluctant to come forward when it got out of hand. Her boss and his boss are the bad ones here and she should be commended for reporting this, however late.
I’ll take your word for it. It isn’t that hard to imagine, given I was fired at about the same age for refusing to ‘entertain’ bigwigs at an after-hours ‘work function.’
Of course, that wasn’t the reason. After 5 years at my first job my ‘excellent’ performance suddenly didn’t pass muster.
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