County Drops Charges Against Alleged 'Man in Black'

With federal charges proceeding against the suspected “Man in Black,” Nobles County has dismissed state charges against the man accused of robbing banks across the Twin Cities.

Nobles County Attorney Gordon Moore told Patch on Monday that he has dismissed charges against 49-year-old Mark Edward Wetsch of Minneapolis.

County prosecutors charged Wetsch with aggravated robbery, terroristic threats and theft following a Jan. 3 robbery at Rolling Hills Bank in Brewster, Minn. Wetsch admitted to the Brewster robbery and unspecified other robberies, according to court documents.

 the robbery that it was investigating whether he was the “Man in Black,” thought to have hit numerous banks in the Twin Cities. On Thursday, that charged Wetsch with 13 counts of armed bank robbery in connection with incidents dating back to March 9—including the same Brewster robbery for which Nobles County had already charged him.

The federal government will now pursue the case against Wetsch, Moore said.

Wetsch, the former nursing director of in St. Louis Park, was convicted in 2005 of taking $1.4 million from the senior care facility through an invoice scheme that occurred between September 1997 and January 2005.