A man from Trumbull, Connecticut, doesn't think it's fair to be branded a thief simply for taking a bag of cash sitting in a bank parking lot.
"I've never had a criminal record in my whole life," Robert Withington, 57, told CT Post. "This is like a crock of baloney. I found money, and now it's probably going to cost me money.
"I walked out onto the parking lot, saw something on the ground, and there was no one around, so I picked it up. It's not like I stole something."
But the police think differently, and they charged Withington with third-degree larceny for the theft of several thousand dollars in Town tax receipt funds.
According to a press release issued by the Trumbull City website, the case began in May when an employee from the Town's Tax Collector's Office discovered a bank deposit bag containing tax receipts was missing. The bag, which was marked with the bank logo and paperwork identifying it as town property, contained nearly $5,000 in cash and had been dropped outside the Quality Street bank branch during a delivery.
Trumbull detectives reviewed surveillance footage and conducted interviews over the following months to determine what happened to the missing bag. They eventually identified Withington as a suspect after learning he was at the bank on the day of the incident and had picked up the deposited bag.
In interviews with police, Withington reportedly admitted taking the bag, believing he had no obligation to return the found property to its rightful owner, the Town of Trumbull.
