DaytonDailyNews.com

COLUMBUS — Attorney General Marc Dann told his family about his affair with his 28-year-old scheduler months ago and they're supporting him as he prepares to fight a campaign to force him from office, his father-in-law said.

"He plans to face impeachment because he doesn't think he has done anything impeachable," Bentley Lenhoff, Dann's father-in-law, said Tuesday, May 6. "Will he change his mind? He might. This is a hell of a lot of pressure. But he's getting support from his wife, his children, his in-laws, a few friends and a few people who are clear thinking who realize this has been nothing but piling on. This has been nothing but a rush to judgment."

Dann, 46, is married to Lenhoff's daughter, Alyssa Lenhoff, who is a journalism instructor at Youngstown State University.

After his office revealed the results Friday, May 3, of an internal inquiry of sexual harassment in his office, Dann admitted to an affair with his former scheduler, Jessica Utovich, who resigned before an investigator's report became public. Three other top officials were banished as part of the inquiry.

Dann vowed to hang on against what many feel are long odds. But Lenhoff said the bulldog tendencies of his son-in-law should not be underestimated. He said Dann is a victim of half-baked lies and innuendo that have been swallowed whole by the media.

"It makes good press. It sells newspapers, and reporters love the smell of blood," he said.

Meanwhile, House Speaker Jon Husted, R-Kettering, said he wants more information before the House considers impeaching Dann.

No elected official has been impeached in Ohio since the early 1800s. "We ought not be in a banana republic," said Rep. Bill Batchelder, R-Medina, who Husted asked to review the impeachment process. "It's a place where we need some deliberation."

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