Estate Of Eliot Ness Settles Stock Dispute With Diebold

The estate of the late famed former federal agent Eliot Ness and North Canton-based Diebold have settled a lawsuit over some long-undiscovered stock that apparently belonged to Ness. Federal court documents show the lawsuit involved a 50-share Diebold stock certificate that languished for years in the South Florida apartment of Ness' longtime secretary. When she died, her belongings including the Diebold stock passed to an acquaintance. A Ness estate attorney had said the stock could now be worth more than 1.1 million dollars because of splits and dividends. The settlement doesn't disclose any details. Ness ran Diebold from 1944 to 1951. Diebold had claimed it had no record of his stock ownership.