The Leon reporter. (Leon, Iowa) 1887-1930, 1907-05-09
DUNNING IS NOW FREE
All Indictments Against the Mt. Ayr
! Banker we're Dismissed at Os-
CeOIa by Judge Evans.

Day Dunning, the Mt. Ayr banker
who wrecked the bank which he owned
in that town in 1904, is free man. A
motion to dismiss the three remaining
indictments against him was made be-
fore Judge Evans at Osceola Monday,
and the motion was sustained, and all
charges against Dunning were dismiss
ed and he was exonerated from any
criminal intent or fraudulent banking
This is all very nice for MIR. Dunning,
but it is little relief to the hundreds of
depositors in his bank who were paid
their final dividends couple of weeks
ago, receiving only 30 per cent of the
money which they had deposited in
Dunning's bank, the deposits at the
time of the failure being nearly half a
million dollars. The direct cause for
dismissing the indictments against
Dunning is given as the refusal of ]. L.
Patterson, the man to whom Dunning
made an assignment and turned over
the books of the bank, to come to Osce-
ola to testify. He is now residing at
Neosho, Mo-, and absolutely refused
to appear as witness against Dunning,
and without his testimony the prosecut-
ing attorneys considered it would be
useless to go to trial, so the motion to
dismiss was made. A number of the
depositors who lost their money in the
failure sent man to see Patterson and
try to induce him to appear against
Dunning, but he was deaf to their APP
peal.
The Dunning bank failure was one of
the worst in the state, and Dunning was
indicted five times. The first trial was
held in Mt. Ayr before Judge Evans in
January 1905, and Dunning was found
guilty. He was given sentence of
three years in the penitentiary,. but
was never inside prison as he at once
appealed the case to the supreme court,
giving bonds and has enjoyed his liber-
ty. When the case reached the SUI
preme court he was granted new trial
on account of technical errors in the
trial in the lower court, and when he
was tried again at Osceola last Decem-
ber he was acquitted on one indictment,
and now the others have been dismissed.
This is certainly very pleasing to Mr..
Dunning, but the people who had every
dollar they possessed on deposit in his
bank and lost 20 per cent of it, are by
no means satisfied. If Mr.. Dunning had
stolen horse owned by one Of his
neighbors he would have been promptly
sent to the penitentiary for term of
years, but nowadays it seems that it is
all right for a banker to get away with
three or four hundred thousand dollars
Of the. banks funds and go scott free.
The people are getting mighty tired
Of this bank failure business, for if a
person deposits their money in bank
they are supposed to be taking all
necessary precautions to insure its
safety.
If Dunning was innocent, there will
be strong hopes for the acquittal Of
Cashier Ware Of the Seymour bank who
seems to have created shortage of
about $250,000 in that bank, which is
now in the hands of receiver, and the
stockholders will lose every dollar Of
their $4,000 worth of stock, have to
pay an assessment equivalent to the
value of their stock holdings, and even
then the depositors will lose over so
per cent of their money. The cost to
Ringgold county in trying to convict
Dunning has amounted to more than
$4,000, which looks like throwing good
money after bad.