Attorney General Marc Dann suspended a middle manager accused of sexual harassment yesterday, and a spokesman denied that his office had tried to short-circuit an investigation into the allegations.

Dann placed Anthony Gutierrez, his director of general services, on paid leave while an investigation is conducted into complaints that he sexually harassed two female staff members.

"We take all allegations of this nature extremely seriously," Dann said in a statement.

Yesterday evening, Dann announced that the investigation will be handled by Ben Espy, a former state senator who is one of Dann's highest-ranking attorneys, and Assistant Attorney General Julie Pfeiffer, who works in the employment law section. They replace Angela Smedlund, who as the office's equal-employment officer fielded the complaints from the two employees.

Smedlund "felt that she no longer could be impartial in the investigation because of comments from the complainants," the attorney general's office said without elaborating.

Dann, a Democrat elected in 2006, and Gutierrez are longtime friends and neighbors from the Youngstown area and shared a Dublin condominium where the employees said some of the sexual harassment occurred.

Gutierrez, 50, will receive his $87,500-a-year salary while the investigation proceeds. As director of general services, Gutierrez oversees purchasing, the mailroom and telecommunications and other support services.

Dann took the action a week after the harassment complaints were filed with his Equal Employment Opportunity coordinator, and a day after The Dispatch wrote about them.

According to complaints filed by Vanessa Stout and Cindy Stankoski, both 26-year-old employees of the telecommunications section that Gutierrez supervises, he plied them with drinks, made unwelcome advances and touched them inappropriately. The women said the incidents occurred at bars, in the attorney general's office and in the Dublin condo shared last year by Gutierrez, Dann and Leo Jennings III, a longtime friend of Dann who makes $102,000 a year as Dann's chief spokesman.

Among the allegations, Stankoski said that Gutierrez invited her to the condo after both were drinking one night after work in September. She said that after drinking heavily, she went to bed, and that Gutierrez wound up next to her in only his underwear.

For three months last summer, Dann's campaign account paid all or part of the rent for the condo, totaling $2,715. He moved out in December. Gutierrez has not responded to requests for comment from The Dispatch.

"In order to protect the interests and rights of all the parties involved, we believe it is prudent to place Mr. Gutierrez on leave during the course of the investigation," Dann said in his statement. "This action is consistent with our commitment to ensuring that the investigation proceeds in accordance with our established policies and procedures, that a complete record is created, and that appropriate action is taken when it is concluded."

After the story was published Sunday, Jennings issued a statement criticizing it and denying that anyone in the attorney general's office had attempted to thwart the normal process for investigating employee complaints. Pointing to a provision in the office's human-resources policy that allows both parties to settle complaints informally, without a full investigation, he said the policy on resolving employee complaints has been followed "to the letter" in this case. But he would not comment on whether it is typical to offer a settlement less than two days after a complaint is filed.

Less than 48 hours after officially making the complaints, Stout and Stankoski said they were surprised to be approached by Smedlund, who they said acknowledged a problem and wanted to see whether it could be resolved informally.

Both women said that Smedlund suggested that Gutierrez might be transferred and that agency officials would "do anything you want" to resolve the matter quietly, without making it public. The women declined the offer.

Jennings said Smedlund recused herself from the case after reading the newspaper story, but he would not elaborate on her reasoning.

On Sunday, Jennings also said the office "was engaged in a thorough investigation of these matters." But the two women told The Dispatch they had been informed that the investigation would not begin until they had completed more paperwork.

ajohnson@dispatch.com

jnash@dispatch.com