Man finds loot, turns it in to cops, now wants it back
Sunday, September 30th 2007, 4:00 AM


A Florida man apparently didn't realize how finders keepers works: you have to keep what you find.

Bernard Salcedo discovered $100,000 in the attic of his new home while inspecting the wiring - and decided to turn it over to cops.

Now's he's fighting to get it back, even though it looks like the money belongs to the widow of the previous homeowner, who was murdered there four years ago.

Scott Quinn was a bail bondsman and gun dealer who kept lots of cash on hand - and similar bags of money were found in the home after he was stabbed to death in 2003.

That money was turned over to his wife, Lana, and she wants the new cache, too.

But Salcedo is fighting that, claiming there's no proof the windfall belonged to Quinn.

Cops say the courts will decide.

SOURCE

Legally, if the money was in the house when he bought it, he "bought" the money, too...

But it's probably going to cost him at least half to get a court to rule on it.

Quote:

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I'm pretty sure bags of money in the attic would not automatically convey here. Whether it was abandoned or not is another issue. And I think some states don't allow finders to keep the money anyway, on the theory if they did no one would ever try to contact the rightful owner?

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Certainly all these things are state to state, locality to locality. I know in NY - where I lived as a kid - if you turn anything in as found after a # of days [90-120], and it goes unclaimed: it's yours.

Filing a report that it was lost or stolen counts as a "claim". So the police attempt to match the rare "found" articles to those under report. If there are none, the police contact you to pick it up. If you don't pick it up in the time window they give you, it's theirs.

Obviously, the more valuable the item the more time the police spend to find the real owner. But if the time expires and it is unclaimed, it's yours!

[But if you didn't turn it in to begin with, it would be yours without the possible cross-claim and the necessity of income taxes ... just saying ... ]