House Speaker Jon Husted, R-Kettering, and Senate President Bill M. Harris, R-Ashland, said they would support legislation next week giving Inspector General Thomas P. Charles the power to start an immediate investigation. Charles would be authorized to probe all allegations surrounding office mismanagement and how Dann and his employees handled sexual-harassment complaints filed against his good friend and office supervisor, Anthony Gutierrez.

This includes new revelations that an employee accused of helping Gutierrez run his Youngstown construction business from his state office had her computer hard drive wiped clean.

Current law limits the inspector general to investigating executive branch offices. The new law would expand Charles' authority temporarily. Dann has maintained that calling in the inspector general would violate the constitutional separation of powers between state executive branches.

"It has become clear to us over the course of the last week that a comprehensive, independent investigation is necessary," Harris and Husted said in a joint release. "We believe Inspector General Tom Charles has the ability and infrastructure to properly and thoroughly conduct this investigation."

Democratic legislative leaders and Gov. Ted Strickland agreed.

"We are appalled at what has happened in the AG's office and what we continue to learn," said House Minority Leader Joyce Beatty.

She said the recent issue with the wiped computer "continues to be another issue for us to look at, the culture of misdeeds happening under the leadership of the AG."

Beatty and Strickland said Charles' investigation should run parallel to House impeachment proceedings against Dann, who has rejected demands from Democratic leaders to step down from office. Gutierrez and three other Dann underlings lost their jobs last week -- two were fired and two resigned -- as part of a sexual-harassment investigation, and two more were disciplined.

Asked whether Dann was offered other employment if he agreed to step down, Beatty said, "I have heard that jobs were offered and rejected."

The structure of the impeachment process remains under construction. Rep. William G. Batchelder, R-Medina, a former judge and 31-year legislative veteran enlisted by Husted to craft the process, gave an oral report to Husted yesterday but said more work remains.

"Every time you figure out one procedure, it raises more questions," he said. Ohio has not conducted an impeachment since 1820.

Husted and Harris yesterday posed several questions to Robert Fiatal, superintendent of the Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation, about why someone wiped clean the computer belonging to Kathleen Walley, 43, an office assistant in the Youngstown office of the general-services division.

Walley was accused of helping her former boss, Gutierrez, run his Youngstown construction business from his state office. Legislative leaders want to know how and when the data erasure was allowed to happen, whether other computer hard drives were destroyed, and who ordered it.

"We are urging that you refrain from further destruction of any material, device, item or anything else that may serve as potential evidence in any current or future investigation or proceeding involving Marc Dann's office," the leaders wrote.

Ted Hart, a spokesman for Dann, said he does not know how Walley apparently scrubbed clean the contents of her computer hard drive. Such actions are not condoned by higher-ups, Hart said.

"We're concerned about it, too," he said. "We have included the information about the incident to the extent that we're aware of it to the State Highway Patrol and the Ethics Commission." Both also are conducting probes.

Dispatch reporter James Nash contributed to this story.

jsiegel@dispatch.com