A Portage County man accused of playing a part in a Social Security check cashing scheme will be retried on those charges. Ronald Disher’s trial was last week, and ended on Friday with convictions on only two out of five charges. He was found guilty of recklessly endangering safety and disorderly conduct, but the jury could not agree on the three charges of being party to the crime of Social Security fraud, so a mistrial was declared.
District Attorney Louis Molepske Jr. and prosecutor Veronica Isherwood requested a new trial on those three charges Monday.
Disher was accused of helping steal $175,000 in Social Security checks written to Marie Jost, a woman who has been missing for over three decades. Disher told jurors last week that he drove two other defendants to a bank where they cashed the checks — but he denied knowing anything about the stolen checks, or what the other two were doing at the time.
Charles Jost was found not guilty by insanity. Disher’s wife, Delores Jost, had her charges dropped after she suffered a stroke last year.
WSAU
