On an normal day, someone who finds money on the floor would think that it’s their lucky day. Maybe somebody up high is looking out for them. That’s what one man in Georgia thought when he came across $30 on the ground and put it in his pocket. Hours later, however, he learned that the police was looking for him for committing a crime.
Georgia law required him to turn in the money
An unnamed man was inside a Walmart, at 2586 N. Slappey Blvd. in Albany, when he came across $30 on the ground while shopping, according to an August 18 post by the Albany Ga Police Department on its official Facebook page.
The man, who has white hair and was wearing a light blue short-sleeve shirt, was apparently caught on camera picking up the cash, with the police posting the alert alongside his picture. The police department initially asked the public for assistance in identifying the suspect who “picked up the money and did not turn it in to the employees.”
Under Georgia law, per Justia, the man had committed the offense of theft of lost or mislaid property. This means that he came into control of property that he knew or learned to have been lost or mislaid and appropriated the property to his own use without first taking reasonable measures to restore the property to the owner.
Fortunately, the post says that the man found out that he was wanted by police and returned the money to the victim. The victim had wanted to pursue charges at the start, but once the $30 was turned in, they dropped the charges.
That said, commenters on Facebook didn’t think that the man should have been pursued by police in the first place, with many believing in the rule of “finders’ keepers.”
One user was dumbfounded by what the cops wanted the man to do: “Wait… you want to find this man because he didn’t report to yall about finding it? What was they going to do? “ATTENTION SHOPPERS! $30 HAS BEEN FOUND. IF IT BELONGS TO YOU, PLEASE COME GET IT…”
Another felt that this law should not have been applied for such a small amount of money: “When I was out with some friends I found a bank envelope in a parking lot that appeared to be from a withdrawal and it had $8,000 in it. Now that is something turn in not $30 found inside a Walmart.”
