The state has paid nearly $500,000 to settle the sexual-harassment cases that helped topple former Attorney General Marc Dann -- but without the expected vote of the state Controlling Board.

Cindy Stankoski, 27, and Vanessa Stout, 27, each received $200,000 this week, with $95,000 going to their attorneys. The settlement came from Attorney General Richard Cordray, a Democrat who was elected to serve the remaining two years of Dann's term.

The payments caught some Republicans off guard, including state Sen. John A. Carey Jr. of Wellston, a member of the state Controlling Board, the legislative body that typically approves state spending.

"We anticipated that it would go though the Controlling Board," Carey told The Dispatch. He said he would look into why the payments were made before the item appeared on the board agenda.

Cordray spokeswoman Holly Hollingsworth said the payments were made without Controlling Board approval "as a matter routine, to our understanding, in legal settlements such as this where payment is made pursuant to the authority of a court."

The Ohio Court of Claims approved the settlement with Stankoski and Stout last month after Cordray and the women's attorneys signed off on the deal.

Hollingsworth said the "overall topic of the settlement" will be part of a larger discussion at the Controlling Board on Feb. 23. She did not have details.

Settlements in wrongful-imprisonment cases also are usually approved by the Court of Claims as well as the Controlling Board before money is paid.

As first reported by The Dispatch last spring, Stankoski and Stout complained a year ago that their boss, Anthony Gutierrez, who was Dann's head of general services, touched them inappropriately, repeatedly pressured them to have sex and to go drinking with him, and used coarse sexual language. Gutierrez, Dann's close friend from Youngstown and part-time roommate in Columbus, was suspended and eventually fired.

Dann resigned May 14 under pressure from his fellow Democrats after he admitted to having an affair with a young staff member.

An inspector general's report released late last year described Dann's 17-month tenure as attorney general as a "house of scandal."

ajohnson@dispatch.com