Finders Keepers? Not in North Dakota… It’s Illegal

As the saying goes, finders keepers, losers weepers.

In other words, if you find something, you get to keep it. Except that isn't the case in North Dakota as a man in Minot recently found out according to KFGO. The winners are the weepers in the Peace Garden State.

KFGO reports that a Minot man picked up $1,000 in cash on the floor of a hardware store and now faces up to five years in prison.

Most people if they find that much cash would probably turn it in. But many of us if we find smaller amounts may keep it.

But the man in Minot was charged with, "theft of property lost, mislaid or delivered by mistake."

And according to the law, a person can be charged if he or she:

1. Retains or disposes of property of another when he knows it has been lost or mislaid; or

 

2. Retains or disposes of property of another when he knows it has been delivered under a mistake as to the identity of the recipient or as to the nature or amount of the property, and with intent to deprive the owner of it, he fails to take readily available and reasonable measures to restore the property to a person entitled to have it.

Clearly the man in Minot is guilty of the first thing on the list. And it's possible that many of us are guilty of the same thing.

The moral of the story here is... if you find something that isn't yours, turn it in. Keeping it could get you in a lot of legal trouble.

[KFGO]