Marc Dann receives fines, 2 years' probation

Marc Dann resigned as attorney general after 17 months in office. PAUL VERNON / AP Enlarge

COLUMBUS - Four years ago, Marc Dann was part of the Democratic tide that rode public disgust with Republican scandal into statewide elected office. He became Ohio's attorney general.

Yesterday, he stood convicted of his own ethics violations and worried aloud that he might lose his law license just as he's trying to rebuild his legal career and facing a very public divorce.

The usually defiant Mr. Dann, 47, appeared subdued before Franklin County Municipal Judge Ted Barrows as he pleaded to two first-degree misdemeanor charges that he used campaign and inaugural accounts to funnel extra compensation to two of his top aides and that he filed false financial disclosure reports omitting sources of income and gifts.

Inside the courtroom, he accepted responsibility for his actions. Outside, he said that while he believed there was enough evidence to convict him, he didn't believe what he did was illegal.

"To be honest, I wanted to put this very sad episode in my family's history behind us so I can try to move on with my legal career, and my children can move on without further embarrassment, and put an end to this matter, just not for me but the people of this state," he said.

"Significant resources were expended on this investigation," he said. "As you can see from the types of things that I was ultimately charged with, certainly the expenditures on the investigation were out of proportion to the alleged conduct," Mr. Dann said. "But I do take responsibility. I should have exercised better oversight and stronger oversight, and I didn't."

He was fined a total of $1,000, ordered to pay court costs and serve 500 hours of community service, and was placed on two years of probation. He is barred for seven years from holding a public office or a state job. He could have faced as much as a year in jail and $2,000 in fines.

He is believed to be the first sitting or former Ohio attorney general to be convicted of a crime related to actions in office.

"Really, it's a sad day for the state and the attorney general's office," said David Freel, executive director of the Ohio Ethics Commission. "There are very good and talented employees in that office who have suffered because of the actions of the former attorney general."

Among the gifts of value that Mr. Dann failed to report on his annual ethics statement was $20,000 in private airfare to a 2007 Arizona conference for himself, family members, and others that was supplied by Ben Barnes, a former Texas lieutenant governor and former lobbyist for a firm that was doing business with the Ohio Lottery at the time.

Mr. Dann also didn't declare rent payments for a condominium he had been sharing with former aides Leo Jennings and Anthony Gutierrez. That money came from campaign and inaugural accounts over which Mr. Dann had control.

Those funds partially constituted the grounds for criminal convictions for all three men. Mr. Gutierrez also had received $5,000 from Mr. Dann's accounts that he used to pay subcontractors for his private construction business.

With this plea deal, Franklin County Prosecutor Ron O'Brien said the investigation into Mr. Dann's troubled 17-month tenure in office has drawn to a close. What began with sexual harassment allegations and general claims of incompetence and cronyism ended with one person convicted of felony theft charges and four others, including Mr. Dann and his estranged wife, convicted of misdemeanors.

In the wake of the sexual harassment allegations against Mr. Gutierrez, Mr. Dann admitted to his own consensual, extramarital affair with his office scheduler. He resigned in May, 2008, under pressure from Republicans and fellow Democrats.

"When I made a mistake - a personal mistake, which is really what prompted all of this discussion - the reservoir of support for some people who are better at playing the game down here than I was just wasn't there for me," said Mr. Dann, a former state senator from Youngstown.

He now faces possible discipline affecting his license to practice law. In 2006, then-Republican Gov. Bob Taft received a public reprimand against his license from the Ohio Supreme Court following his convictions on four first-degree misdemeanor charges of failing to report gifts on his financial disclosure forms.

Mr. O'Brien noted Mr. Taft did not have a prior blemish on his legal record. Mr. Dann does. He was previously reprimanded by the Supreme Court for filing the wrong pleading as a private attorney in a divorce case.

Contact Jim Provance at:

jprovance@theblade.com

or 614-221-0496.