Woman turns in bag stuffed with $65,000

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. --A county garbage operations employee found a plastic bag on the road stuffed with $65,000 Thursday -- and immediately turned it in to authorities.

It turned out the money had fallen off a Loomis armored car half an hour before Debbie Cole found it near the Pinellas County solid waste operations facility where she works. First she thought it was a turtle in the road.

The 53-year-old Largo woman found the bag just before 7 a.m., full of enough $50 and $100 bills to pay her salary for two years. She immediately contacted a supervisor, who called deputies.

It's not clear how the bag fell from the truck, said Mark Clark, spokesman for Loomis, a Houston-based cash-handling company.

Cole's boss, Bob Hauser, said he can't give her a raise or a bonus for her good deed because she's a government employee. But maybe, he said, he can arrange some extra time off.

I was going to let this drop, but I thought better of it. I may be wasting electrons but here goes.

Let’s be clear. I may have insulted you, but in no way did I insult your family. That’s your projection not mine.

What is my crime? You said if you found a lot of money in the street, you would have taken it and not turned it in. In my book, this is theft. The money did not belong to you. You did not earn it. Why in good conscience would you tell the world you feel free to pocket it.

If I have pricked your conscience so be it. Like I said, I don’t know you but I am confident you are a decent person and your pen overloaded your good judgment. If you are embarrassed, I am sorry. It was not my intention. My purpose was to remind you that words have meaning. You and what you write encourage or discourage those around you. We all have this power.

You do yourself an injustice. You claim you would have beaten me severely if I had chastised you to your face. Have you really such little tolerance? Is violence the only recourse when intellectually challenged. If so, I have given you too much credit.

I mean you no harm, but at my age, I have learned to draw some lines. I will not shrink from my beliefs. And I do this over the internet because that is where we are. This is how we all speak to the greater community.

I live in Atlanta and I am over sixty. If you wish to pummel me, I will be more than happy to give you my address. But be forewarned, the treachery of age will always defeat the heat of youth. :)

Now, do me a favor. Relax. Have an adult beverage and do something really important. Love your wife, hug your children and pray for your neighbors who are in harms way.

Most likely it is not prohibited for Loomis to provide a reward but depending on who finds it that person might not be able to accept. But for the average joe on the street what’s wrong with 10 per cent? Loomis was looking to lose all of it after, certainly something they did not want to have happen, and maybe a nice reward increases peoples’ honesty? I dunno, what Miss Manners has to say about this but if you lost your wallet wouldn’t it be worth it to you to get your cash and credit cards, identification cards, phone numbers back?

Now that I think about it returning a lost cell phones might be a nice thing to do but tough to leave a tip.

You said:

It reflects not only poorly on you, but on the family that raised you and the few friends who support you.

After having said:

That said and with all due offense

Please tell me how that was not intended as an insult to my family? My friends? I have a thick skin and I could care less what you say about me. But, I do have some buttons and my family (my wife, my 3 children, my own mother and father) is one of them. I have an special dark spot for people who say those kinds of things behind the safety of anonymity.

You claim you challenged me intellectually and only chastised me, which is not true. You insulted me outright without even the pretense of initiating a discussion. You were an asshole; period.

Now, let's discuss. If I had found $65k lying in the road in a bag I would have assumed somebody was going to be looking for it. In fact, I would go so far as to assume that they would be conducting a rather public search. With that in mind, I would hang on to the money and watch the news. Let's remember that it is $65k we're talking about. I am almost positive the owner would be discovered that way.

What do you think would happen if you turned the money over to the government? Do you think they would conduct a search for its owner? Not likely. They'll let it sit at the station (provided it is actually noted as having been turned in) and wait 30 days to see if somebody comes in to claim it. If it isn't claimed, then they get to go buy a couple of nice new cruisers. If you think that the government, as an entity, has more integrity that your average citizen, myself included, then you are mistaken. I enrich the government plenty each year, I don't see any need to enrich it any further.

I take back what I said about beating you. You're several years older than my parents. I'm sure I would have just told you where to stick it and left it at that.

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