Legal News

After Settlement in Sex Scandal, Defiant Dann is Defiant Till the End

By Dan Slater

If anything, Ohio’s former attorney general, Marc Dann, has been defiant to the very end.

Dann, you’ll remember, admitted last year to an extra-marital “romantic relationship” with a member of his staff. Democratic leaders in his state, such as Governor Ted Strickland, called for his head. Amid the standoff, one employee at Dann’s office recalled Dann saying: “I’m not going to let them push me out.” Dann had also quoted John Wayne in a press release: “Life is getting up one more time than you’ve been knocked down.”

After Dann finally resigned, in mid-May, we didn’t hear anything on the sex-scandal front. But now the state of Ohio has reached a settlement with two women whose sexual harassment complaints led to his resignation, reports the AP.

Niki Schwartz, an attorney chosen by both sides who tried to reach a previous settlement, said the deal was fair and reasonable. The women’s attorney, Rex Elliott, had originally proposed a settlement worth about $900,000, according to the AP.

For his part, Dann told the AP that he felt the settlement was too generous. “While I am sympathetic to the challenges that these women faced, in my view the facts do not support a payout of this magnitude.”

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on January 23, 2009 (boomark / email).