Law Career and State Senate
Dann earned a bachelor of arts degree in 1984 from the University of Michigan and a law degree in 1987 from Case Western Reserve University.
Dann practiced law in Youngstown, Ohio, and became active in Democratic Party politics. He was reprimanded in 2004 by the Ohio Supreme Court for handling a 2002 alimony case without proper preparation.
Dann ran for the Ohio state Senate in the district then comprising Trumbull and Geauga counties. He finished third in the party primary behind eventual winner Tim Ryan and a local township trustee. From 2001 to 2002, Dann served as a member of the Liberty Local School District board of education. After Ryan won election to Congress in 2002, Dann convinced the state Senate's Democratic caucus to appoint him to fill the balance of Ryan's term. He easily won election to a full term in 2004.
Dann was a leading figure in the exposure of a variety of ethics and criminal scandals in the administration of Gov. Bob Taft, who became the first sitting governor in Ohio history to plead guilty to a crime. Dann was a leading critic of "Coingate," an investment plan in which $50 million of the state's workers compensation reserve fund was given to Tom Noe, a politically connected coin dealer. When the Coingate scandal broke, Taft, who was a regular golf partner of Noe's, denied having knowledge of the Bureau of Workers Compensation (BWC) decision to invest money in Noe's coin funds. Sen. Dann demanded, then sued to see memos, e-mails, and other communications transmitted between Gov. Taft's office and the BWC.
Dann was also a vociferous critic of then-Attorney General Jim Petro, a Republican, who had been notified by the Securities And Exchange Commission more than two years earlier that the SEC had serious reservations about investment practices at the BWC. Dann charged that Petro ignored those warnings and the misuse of funds at the agency continued unabated until the Toledo Blade and Dann began to expose the corruption.
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