Ohio AG Marc Dann on Hot Seat Over Affair With Staffer

[WSJ Law Blog]

Hmmm, where have we heard this one before: an aggressive, upstart state attorney general becomes embroiled in a high-profile and career-threatening sex scandal less than halfway through his first term? That’s right, it’s deja vu all over again — sort of. Swap Albany for Columbus, Ohio; and a prostitution ring for a consensual affair with a staffer and it’s a pretty good fit.

The latest: Ohio AG Marc Dann on Friday vowed at a news conference to stay in office and “repair the damage caused” by his affair with a staffer and an ensuing sexual-harassment investigation that ended on Friday with four people losing their jobs. Here are stories from the Cleveland Plain-Dealer and the AP. (HT: Above the Law) The Plain-Dealer followed up with an editorial on Sunday calling for Dann’s resignation.

Dann, a 46-year-old Democrat who was elected to his first term in 2006, had emerged in the last year or so as a tough-minded fighter for the little-guy investor. After being in the office for only a few months, according to this NYT story, he’d spoken out against UnitedHealth Group over its options backdating problems and had revived an antitrust investigation into Marsh & McLennan. More recently, he’d pursued mortgage lenders and brokers for allegedly inflating home prices. Click here for a WSJ story from last October and here and here for Reuters stories from February.

“Marc is sending the signal that there is a sheriff in the state of Ohio,” Cuyahoga County treasurer Jim Rokakis, told the Journal.

But his future now appears in question. According to the Plain-Dealer, the affair with his 28-year-old former scheduler emerged out of a probe into harassment charges against one of his top managers. Dann partly blamed his inexperience and surprise at winning the 2006 election. “I was not as well prepared for office as I should have been, and I am heartbroken by that and I take responsibility for that,” he told the Plain-Dealer. That said, he’s apparently not sure whether he violated his own office policies by having the relationship, which he said came during a difficult time in his marriage.

“I don’t know what it [the policy] says,” an emotional Dann said at the news conference. “A consensual affair is not necessarily a violation of the sexual harassment policy in my office.”

Photo: State of Ohio Attorney General’s Web site