A Texas Man Found $128,514 On Top Of An ATM Then Did This...
On August 3, a 37-year-old barber from Lewisville, Texas, walked up to a Bank of America ATM on West Main Street with a 42-year-old companion to withdraw some cash and found something sitting on top of the machine: a bag stuffed with $128,514 in cash and a second smaller bag containing 19 checks. He called 911. While waiting, he drove to a nearby Chick-fil-A because the name on one of the bags pointed there, asking whether the money might belong to them. It did not. When police arrived and counted the cash, every dollar was accounted for. An officer counted it twice and verified the total with a digital currency counter before sealing and securing it. Lewisville Police Detective Gina Miller, who handled the case, said she had never had a case like this before, ever. The money turned out to belong to Bank of America and had been left on top of the ATM by a Brinks technician who serviced the machine and accidentally forgot to take the cash with him. Bank of America has since recovered the full amount. No criminal activity was connected to the incident.
The barber, who asked not to be identified publicly, told CBS News Texas he could not speak in detail about what happened. He confirmed that if Lewisville police hold a ceremony to honor him, he will gladly attend. Lewisville Police Chief Brook Rollins offered his explanation for why the man made the decision he made, and it was not complicated: he said the man just thinks it is the right thing to do and does not think it goes beyond that. Miller said she has worked cases before where good Samaritans turned in wallets, IDs, and other lost property, but that returning six figures in cash was something categorically different in her experience as a detective. Rollins used the episode to make a point about how police departments actually function. We are one half of the equation, he said, and the community is the other half. The case came with no robbery, no theft, and no missing money, he added, just a bag with $128,514 and one man who decided every dollar belonged to somebody else. Miller had one additional note for anyone who might find themselves in a similar situation in the future: there is no finders keepers, losers weepers in the law, and people who find property have a legal obligation to make a genuine effort to return it or risk being in trouble themselves. The barber from Lewisville did not need to be told.
