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Brooten Bank Probe Starts Anoka County Attorney to Serve as Special Investigator-Depositors Ask Probe Will A. Blanchard, Anoka county attorney, acting as a special representative of the state banking department has started an investigation of the affairs of the Security state bank of Brooten which was disclosed in May. The investigation was ordered on the petition of the depositor committee which approached A. J. Viegel, state superintendent of banking, and asked that the affairs of the bank be thoroughly gone into. No charges have been made, but the committee stated that persistent rumors of mismanagement of the bank funds had resulted in considerable ill-feeling in Brooten and the investigation was desired to either find the cause for the rumors or finally silence them. The state department agreed to the investigation and appointed County Attorney Blanchard to the work. He has worked with the state in the Wright county investigations of last spring which resulted in the conviction of H. M. Sievers on bank looting charges in the Benson bank case concluded yesterday. The officers of the closed Brooten bank were J. P. Wahl, president, a resident of Brooten and C. 0. Knutson, now serving as receiver of the Farmers State Bank of Villard.
