Then-Attorney General Marc Dann jetted off to Turkey for a law-enforcement conference last June without his scheduler, Jessica Utovich, but it appears that she was never far from his mind.

Dann, 46, had tried to help Utovich, 28, obtain a passport so she could accompany him and two other officials on a four-day conference in Istanbul, apparently funded by the Department of Homeland Security. Dann's top assistant, Thomas R. Winters, killed the idea.

While Utovich stayed in Ohio, Dann called her personal cell phone seven times on his state-paid international cell phone, according to records obtained by The Dispatch.

Dann called Utovich five times on her birthday, June 15, the records show.

In contrast, Dann called his Youngstown-area home, where his wife and two of his three children live, only three times during the entire trip, the records show.

The calls were not cheap -- $1.49 a minute for both incoming and outgoing. That meant Dann's 119 minutes cost $177.31; other staff members' calls added up to more than $500, not including the cost of renting the phones.

-- James Nash jnash@dispatch.com