COLUMBUS, Ohio — Former Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann ran a vulgar and unprofessional office and misused campaign funds to make lavish payments to friends and family, the state’s government watchdog said Monday in releasing the results of a six-month investigation.
Dann, a Democrat elected in 2006 on an anti-corruption platform, resigned in May amid a sexual-harassment scandal in his office that included his admission that he had an affair with an employee.
The report by Inspector General Tom Charles said Dann hired a coterie of young women dubbed “the Dannettes” who were so unqualified and unprofessional in their dress and conduct that an assistant was assigned to conduct etiquette training.
“It was very difficult not to make that report an X-rated report,” Charles said at a news conference. He said “power, money and sex” were central elements that surfaced throughout the investigation.
Dann used his position to indulge himself and gave top jobs to aides whose only qualification was loyalty and friendship, the report said.
Charles said he was forwarding the report to Columbus and Franklin County prosecutors, the Internal Revenue Service and the Ohio Department of Taxation, among others.
