Rochester man appears on check fraud, firearm theft charges

Man faces theft and fraud charges

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(ABC 6 News) – A Rochester man faces firearm theft and check fraud charges in Olmsted County Court.

Dantel Ruth Jr. faces the following charges dating back to June of 2023: felon in possession of a firearm; felony theft; and felony receipt of stolen property.

Ruth Jr. also faces the following charges from August of 2023: three counts of felony check forgery–offer/possess with intent to defraud.

According to court documents, on June 2023, the Olmsted County Sheriff’s Office responded to a theft in SW Rochester, where four firearms were stolen during a house party.

According to court documents, a witness confirmed that Ruth Jr. had stolen four long guns, and sent police a photo from his Facebook story that read “2 shotguns 1000 a piece come get em.”

Police recovered the guns in September of 2023, according to court documents.

RELATED: Rochester teenager appears on charge of possessing stolen gun – ABC 6 News – kaaltv.com

According to Ruth Jr.’s second set of charging documents, Rochester police went to a NW Rochester bank on Aug. 3, 2023, because of a fraudulent check deposit.

An employee said a bank customer had deposited two false checks into her account, then made cash withdrawals for the entire amounts — more than $11,000 in total.

RELATED: St. Paul man receives probation, community service in check forgery plea deal – ABC 6 News – kaaltv.com

The woman was taken into custody and allegedly described Dantel Ruth Jr. as running a check fraud organization in Rochester.

The woman said Ruth Jr. had instructed her to open new bank accounts across Rochester, and when she did, Ruth Jr. took all her debit cards and log-in information, connected her CashApp account to the banks, then connected her accounts to his CashApp.

After the woman cashed the fraudulent checks, court documents claim, Ruth Jr. used her information to transfer the money into his own account.

Court documents allege that the woman had deposited another fraudulent check into her account, and that other individuals attested that Ruth Jr. gave them fraudulent checks to deposit in the same time frame.

All of the checks came from the same construction company, which stated the routing and account numbers were correct–but the company had not reached those check numbers when the woman deposited the checks, and so they had been forged.

Ruth Jr. appeared in Olmsted County Court on all charges Nov. 6.

He is scheduled to appear for a settlement hearing Jan. 23, 2025, followed by a pretrial hearing scheduled for June 15, 2025.