Victims Calling

While we'd prefer that Scene not induce vomiting, it's hard to blame Anna.

After reading last week's cover story on Hy Doan ["Sex Thief," September 14], who's wiggled out of six rape cases over the past 25 years, she promptly lost her supper. Anna, it seems, is yet another victim. "I had no idea that I wasn't the only one," she says. "This guy is a total sicko."

Anna, who doesn't want her last name used, says she was working as an escort when she met Doan last year. He told her he was "Dr. Kitaro" and offered her $6,000 for nonsexual escort services. But like the rest of Doan's victims, Anna ultimately found herself at Steve's Motel in Green, being raped by Doan, who refused to pay her. "I never told the police, because I just wanted to forget it ever happened," she says.

Instead, Anna spread word of the "doctor's" scam to other potential victims -- i.e., strippers. A few months after her alleged rape by Doan, a dancer at an Akron strip club told her that he was hanging out at her club, offering dancers big cash for nonsexual dates. Anna called Doan's cell phone and told him to stay away. "He told me he was just having a good time and it was none of my business," Anna says. "It appears he didn't listen to me at all."

After reading Scene's exposé, Anna finally contacted the Summit County Sheriff's Department. As the paper went to press, reporter Denise Grollmus was fielding calls from other women who claimed that Doan raped them.

To file a complaint, call Detective Mike Coghenour at 330-643-2131.

Forget Katrina
You'd think Ohio Senators Mike DeWine and George Voinovich would want to find out what went wrong with the federal response to Hurricane Katrina.

Naaaaah.

Last week, DeWine and Voinovich joined every Republican senator but one in voting against creating an independent commission to investigate the matter. Instead, they decided that Congress would handle it.

"Congress is very qualified to act as an oversight and take a look into this," says Jeff Sadosky, DeWine's press secretary. "They'll do a great job to figure out what went wrong and how we can react better next time."

Be alarmed whenever "great job" and "Congress" are found in the same vicinity. These are the same guys who looked the other way as incompetent stooges were appointed to head important agencies. They're also the guys who diverted funds to Iraq that could have gone to shoring up levees. The smart money says neither issue will be explored by Congress.

But Sadosky has a ready answer for that: The commission will be bipartisan. He's hoping Democrat Joe Lieberman will hop on board.

Ahh, Lieberman. He's been Republicans' favorite Democrat ever since Zell Miller went batshit insane. Lieberman's qualifications include rubber-stamping the appointment of FEMA Director Mike Brown, whose qualifications included serving as commissioner of the International Arabian Horse Association.

Consult this!
Brace yourself. On September 22, Rebecca Ryan will address the City Club to tell Cleveland what it's doing wrong.

It's a sweet racket. When the old guys who run cities don't know how to make them hip, they pay top dollar to consultants like Ryan to tell them the obvious.

Last year, she was hired by the Greater Akron Chamber of Commerce to probe the Rubber City's brain drain. Her alarming conclusion: Akron is not very cool, and most people outside of Ohio -- gasp! -- can't even find it on a map! So she offered 18 recommendations to increase its hiposity, stuff like putting bike racks on buses and extending the towpath into an exercise and biking loop.

Akron was saved.

Though Ryan won't provide a preview of her speech here, she does say in a hushed whisper: "I think it's going to be a call to action for many organizations in Cleveland."

Apparently, she's never been to Cleveland. Otherwise she'd know we don't do action around here. But we do have a very nice drawer waiting as the final resting place for her report.

Parting shot
Earlier this month, The Plain Dealer announced that its longtime film critic, Joanna Connors, would become a full-time pop-culture commentator. Since The PD has approximately four readers under age 70, this explains why it would hire a middle-aged lady doing a discount Erma Bombeck impression to cover pop culture.

But before Connors left the film gig, she settled one last score with her review of NightOwls of Coventry. The independent movie, by Cleveland's Laura Paglin, detailed the comedic characters who spent time at Marv's Deli in the '70s.

Most of Connors' review was spent attacking the movie's poster -- which featured celebrity curmudgeon Harvey Pekar. Pekar doesn't appear in the movie, but he's become known as the weird spokesman for Coventry since the success of American Splendor. When Connors did address NightOwls, she didn't pull punches: "The film is alternately as broad as a canceled sitcom and as amateurish as a community theater production." Ouch.