What is the law regarding found money?
A few years ago my b/f found $750 just lying on the sidewalk, there was no ID with it, just a wad of bills.
I have always wonder what the law said if anything.
It’s frustrating when you know all the answers,
but nobody bothers to ask you the questions.
In Ireland, (I dont know what the story is Stateside) there is an arcahiac law dealing with theft by finding. the only way I can remember this is that someone was actually
charged with this last year.
He found a wallet with a sum of money, returned it to the Gardai (the police force in Ireland). 2 weeks later he was arrested for “Theft by finding”, needless to say the judge threw the case out and the man got his 15 seconds of fame… biut weird though
The law in this country, as far as I know, does not speak of KEEPING found money. You find some dinero on the street, snag it and keep walking, it’s all yours.
There are laws regarding found money (and property) that you turn into the police, however. Those laws say that from the time you turn items in to the authorities (your local police precinct will do), the original owner of the property has x-amount of time to pick up the lost items.
After that time has elapsed, if nobody has picked up the lost items, they are yours to keep.
Yer pal,
Satan
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My son’s friend found some money in a library book and took it to the police, as Satan indicated, and after a few weeks they gave it to him to keep. They said it was probably drug money, but I don’t know if that was just cops talking tough.
Curiously, the amount was, IIRC, about $750. Maybe there is a $750 fairy somewhere, just like the tooth fairy.
If you find anything, you’re legally supposed to turn it in to the cops here for 90 days. If not claimed, you can have it.
In 97, I pulled an old BB gun from a dumpster here & was walking with it. The cops came [plenty of them, that is Pacific Grove] took it from me, never gave it back.
Yes, I know that stuff in dumpsters is free of this stupid archiac law; but they don’t.
A cop here in Vancouver found a million dollars in a bag in a park in the city. He turned it in to the police station. But since he was a cop, they made him wait longer to get the money than it would take an ordinary citizen (60 days), so as to avoid any claim of impropriety. Eventually, he was allowed to apply to keep the money. IIRC, the courts threw out a claim on the money by a Mr. X for refusing to reveal his identity (wonder why?). The cop was recently allowed to keep the money.
In general, if you turn in any found items, you get to keep it if the owner does not claim it in a reasonable time.
However, with the “war on drugs”, police can confiscate “drug money” or items bought with “drug money”. This money goes into the police department’s budget. If you turn in a lot of money, they will declare it to be “drug money” and confiscate it. After all, who loses $100,000 in cash? You have to go to court to try to keep it.
Actually, the cops can’t simply “declare” it drug money and keep it. They have to institute forfeiture proceedings against it. In other words, they have to go to court to keep it; they can’t just decide it’s theirs. A neutral and detached judge makes the determination.
This is actually one of the stranger areas of law. The legal ‘fiction’ employed here is that the money itself is guilty (actually, liable) and is a party to the proceeding. The case is a civil in rem forfeiture. It’s very strange to see a case styled United States vs. $680,759 In Currency , but that’s how it’s done. As a civil case, the standard of proof needed by the government is not “beyond a reasonable doubt” but only “preponderance of the evidence.”
Only a slight hijack: this is the same method used to seize cars used by Johns caught trying to solicit prostitution (United States vs. One 1997 Red Corvette). There is some outcry about this in DC; they could theoretically take the car without a finding of guilt, since your guilt is “beyond a reasonble doubt” and you car’s guilt was “preponderance.”
That’s what I meant. YOU have to go to court to get it back. Or, if you never go to court to protest, will a judge really turn down the cops and tell them to return it to the finder? Does the money [or, in your example, car] get an attorney?
If by any chance you found $100,000, gave it to the police, and they gave it back after a given wait period, would you have to pay income tax on it?
If so, I’d rather just quietly keep it and slowly spend it as to not raise suspicions. As long as I didn’t make any huge purchases in cash, I think I could do it.
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The Canadians. They walk among us. William Shatner. Michael J. Fox. Monty Hall. Mike Meyers. Alex Trebek. All of them Canadians. All of them here.
Of course you’d have to pay taxes on it. It’s income.
And if you were careful, as you suggest… you might get away with not reporting it. But it depends on your current income level and how fast you spent the money, and on what. If you make $28K per year and were carrying $2500 in credit card debt, and have a pair of speedboats, first-class travel to Hawaii for two, and all your credit cards paid off… that might raise some eyebrows down at IRS HQ.
Even if you decided to pay cash for your groceries and rent, and just deposit your paycheck and never spend it… it might cause someone to wonder why you are suddenly not spending your paycheck.
Of course, unless you do something to flag interest or an audit… you’re not likely to get caught.
Hmmm… a guardian ad litem for a car, eh? Fascinating concept though it may be, the answer is no. A party in interest may appear, though - presumably, the owner of the car, or the finder of the money. Since as a finder your interests would be adverse to the cops’, you would have a chance to argue that the money wasn’t tainted drug funds, and therefore belonged to you as the finder. BUT – if you prevailed and got a finding that it wasn’t drug money… what would stop the REAL money owner from coming forward and saying, “Actually, that’s mine. Thanks, though!”
Hmmm… would the government be collaterally estopped from claiming in a new proceeding that the funds were drug money after they lost that first proceeding?
For $100,000, I think 5-10 years of slowly using it would do it. Every time that I would now go to the ATM (groceries, lunch money, Atlantic City), just dip into the pot. Then at the end of the month transfer the money I didn’t remove from checking and put it into savings.
Now all I have to do is find $100,000.
The Canadians. They walk among us. William Shatner. Michael J. Fox. Monty Hall. Mike Meyers. Alex Trebek. All of them Canadians. All of them here.
There was a couple in California. Said they found $250,000 in cash on their driveway. Yeah, right. Who wants to be they didn’t put it there themselves?