Minnesota’s bail system exploited – again!

I’ve been following the truly troubling pre-trial happenings involving Ryan Wolner, 18, of North Mankato for the past couple of months. Wolner is charged with over a dozen felonies including aiding and abetting murder, aggravated assault and robbery, possession of a firearm by a prohibited person, and attempted bribery of a witness – all involving a series of drug rip offs that he has set up in the Mankato area, including one in May that resulted in the murder of a 17-year-old.

Despite the fact that many of the crimes that Wolner is charged with happened while he was out on bail and wearing an ankle bracelet, Wolner once again bailed out of jail last week on the May 2026 murder case – costing his family a considerable amount of cash to obtain the $2.5 million bond covering three separate court cases. He made it less than a day before violating conditions of his release by contacting co-defendants who remained in custody using three-way phone calls. Wolner was re-arrested and faced a Probation Violation Hearing last week in Nicollet County court. I wrote about that development here, in a piece entitled, “Minnesota’s bail system exploited.”

The judge determined that Wolner had in fact violated the terms of his conditional release and amended the bail and conditions of release. The new terms effectively increased the bail amount in the murder case to $2 million with no conditions, or $1.25 million with conditions. That amount was to run consecutively with the other two cases, totaling another $1.25 million.

Despite his history and the millions of dollars of bail needed to secure his release, it has been reported that last evening Wolner once again obtained a bond and secured his release from jail.

There’s a lot at stake for the greater Mankato area court system with Wolner once again on the street. He has shown no willingness or ability to abide by conditions of release or the law, and more trouble for Wolner and the community seems to be painfully predictable.