2023-09-01 02:17:58
The story of someone who finds a significant sum of money in a public place and decides to keep it poses an interesting dilemma. The decision to make yours something that does not belong to us can have serious consequences. Such is the case of a man in the United States (USA) who recently found $5,000 in a bank parking lot in Connecticut and chose to appropriate the money. However, this decision could land him some time in prison.
Robert Withington felt as if he had won the lottery and that this was his lucky day after finding a bag with about $5,000 in cash in the parking lot of a Connecticut bank.
But Trumbull, Connecticut, police say the 57-year-old’s good fortune in May came in the form of thousands of city tax dollars in a deposit bag marked with the bank’s insignia.
Months after what he thought was a lucky and lucrative morning, Withington has been charged with third degree larceny. He turned himself in Friday after a lengthy investigation, Trumbull police said in a Press release.
Withington maintains that he saw nothing in the bag of money to indicate that it had an owner. He told the Trumbull Times that it was a case of “who finds and stays”.
“It’s not like this was planned,” he told Hearst Connecticut Media . “Everything was in the moment and it was as if I had won the lottery. That was it”. And he added: “This is nonsense.”
The tempting discovery
Trumbull Police Lt. Brian Weir told the Washington Post in a statement that the bag of cash “contained numerous documents identifying the owner of the contents as the City of Trumbull” and that Withington acknowledged taking the money on May 30.
“He kept the bag, believing that he had no obligation to return it to its rightful owner,” Weir said. If convicted, Withington could face between 1 and 5 years in prison and a $5,000 fine, according to the lawyers state.
Withington has run a dog training business for years in Trumbull, about 20 miles southwest of New Haven, Connecticut. He had just recovered from Covid-19 in May and went to a Quality Street bank branch on the morning of May 30, Withington told the Trumbull Times.
When he left the bank around 9:30 a.m., he noticed a police officer in the parking lot looking at his cell phone, Withington recalled to the Times. But Withington saw something else in the lot: a bag full of money.
Seeing that no one else was around and the officer wasn’t paying attention, she grabbed the bag, tucked it under her arm, and walked back to her car, she said. “I just took the cash and called it a day. I don’t even know whose it was because I didn’t look,” he told Hearst. “All I saw was cash.”
But the bag did have an owner, police say. Authorities were notified that a Trumbull Tax Collector’s Office employee was “unable to locate the bank deposit bag while making delivery to the bank during the normal course of operations” on May 30.
“The clerk reported that he discovered the bag was missing when he arrived at the bank,” police said in a news release.
Trumbull detectives began a months-long investigation that included interviews, search warrants and surveillance footage from that morning, police said. They concluded that what Withington called luck was due to someone’s costly mistake.
“The bank deposit bag had been inadvertently dropped to the ground outside the bank, and was later picked up by Withington,” police said.
Withington was questioned by police and acknowledged that he was at the bank on May 30 and that he had collected the bag of cash. “If he had known that he was wrong from the beginning, he would have sent it back immediately,” he told Hearst. “I didn’t think he was doing anything wrong.”
Withington told local media that he has no criminal record and was “not looking for trouble.” But he maintained that he did nothing wrong when he picked up thousands of dollars in cash outside the bank, telling Hearst: “It’s not like he stole anything.” “I found money and now it’s probably going to cost me money,” he said.
What to do if you find money on the street in the United States?
As tempting as it may be, keeping money found on the street, especially if it is a large amount, is not the first option to consider. The first thing one should have is to contact a lawyer or the Police, indicates the Criminal Defense Lawyer portal. “Many communities have local laws or ordinances that govern what someone should do if they find cash and don’t know who it belongs to. In some cases, state law will apply,” the portal specifies.
Dollar. (Photo: Jessica Vicente / GEC)
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