GENEVA \u2014 Dale Mosher, who Ontario County Sheriff David Cirencione called \u201ca bully who people suspected was up to no good for years,\u201d is in custody.<\/p>\n
The former commander of the Geneva American Legion failed to appear in county court Sept. 18 on a charge he stole more than $100,000 from the veterans organization. He was arrested in the parking lot of a Walmart in Bloomsburg, Pa., Oct. 13 at about 2:30 p.m. He had been the subject of a manhunt during which Cirencione said Mosher allegedly sent death threats to three people through the mail.<\/p>\n
Mosher, 65, is being held in Columbia County, Pa., without bail, awaiting extradition. If he does not waive extradition, Acting Ontario County District attorney Kelly Wolford said she will seek a governor\u2019s warrant to have him brought back to New York.<\/p>\n
In a press conference Tuesday morning at Geneva American Legion Winnek Post 396, Cirencione said Mosher\u2019s arrest Monday was the result of an intensive investigation that involved police agencies in three states. including the U.S. Marshals Service. He said information that his department developed indicated that Mosher had traveled to Tennessee to see his sister there, exchanged his car for her Jeep, then drove it to central Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had reliable information he was in Pennsylvania, in the Harrisburg and Gettysburg area,\u201d Cirencione said, adding that Mosher apparently was living out of his sister\u2019s Jeep at a rest stop on a Pennsylvania highway and had put North Carolina plates on the vehicle.<\/p>\n
Cirencione said shortly after that, two people who are witnesses in the case against Mosher, and a third who is a relative \u2014 all three live in Ontario County \u2014 received handwritten letters in the mail that involved death threats. They were turned over to the sheriff\u2019s office and Geneva police immediately, the sheriff said, noting that it caused great concern with Mosher being at large.<\/p>\n
The letters were mailed from Harrisburg and contained information that would have been known only to Mosher and the recipients, Cirencione explained. Although Mosher has not been charged in connection with the letters, that possibility exists and would have to determined by state and postal service officials.<\/p>\n
Cirencione also said it has not been determined if officials in Tennessee would be charging Mosher\u2019s sister, whom he did not identify, as an accessory. The sheriff said that after she was notified he was being sought, she did not offer Mosher any more assistance.<\/p>\n
Mosher was included on Ontario County\u2019s most wanted list after a bench warrant was issued for his arrest when he failed to appear in court. The warrant followed a grand larceny indictment related to his alleged embezzlement of funds from the Winnek Post. He is accused of taking more than $100,000 in cash from the Winnek Post from about 2018 to May 2023. Wolford said it is suspected he was taking money for years before that, but bank records could not be secured before 2018, so those accusations could not be proven.<\/p>\n
Mosher was indicted by a grand jury on a single count of second-degree grand larceny, a class C felony, that could result in a 15-year prison sentence if he is found guilty. He had been released on his own recognizance after his arrest.<\/p>\n
Former District Attorney Jim Ritts said in announcing the indictment that the cash Mosher is accused of stealing was for \u201cpersonal use\u201d through \u201clots of little thefts.\u201d Ritts pointed to a \u201csense of betrayal from one of your own \u2014 that\u2019s a real thing. \u2026 Our hope is to restore that faith and that service.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cirencione echoed those same comments on Tuesday, calling Mosher a bully who was the only person who had access to Legion funds, and who people feared. Cirencione said it was not until current Legion Commander A.J. Fratto defeated Mosher in an election for commander that the malfeasance started coming to light.<\/p>\n
When taking over from Mosher, Fratto said he asked to see the post\u2019s financial records, but was stonewalled. Fratto said discrepancies were noted by the legion\u2019s financial heads in an internal audit put together by Treasurer Ken Gregory, and that ultimately led him to contact the sheriff\u2019s office to request an investigation. That internal audit was turned over to the sheriff\u2019s office.<\/p>\n
Ten months later, Mosher was charged.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"GENEVA \u2014 Dale Mosher, who Ontario County Sheriff David Cirencione called \u201ca bully who people suspected was up…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3165,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1646,2899,2891,31,710,2892,2894,2901,2898,2896,740,2895,1856,2893,2900,2897,28,30,29,2890,209],"class_list":{"0":"post-3164","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pennsylvania","8":"tag-arrest","9":"tag-arrest-warrant","10":"tag-common-law","11":"tag-crime","12":"tag-crimes","13":"tag-criminal-justice","14":"tag-criminal-law","15":"tag-dale-mosher","16":"tag-embezzlement","17":"tag-indictment","18":"tag-justice","19":"tag-larceny","20":"tag-law-enforcement","21":"tag-law-related-events","22":"tag-legal-action","23":"tag-misconduct","24":"tag-pennsylvania","25":"tag-pennsylvania-headlines","26":"tag-pennsylvania-news","27":"tag-public-law","28":"tag-theft"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3164","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3164"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3164\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3165"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}