Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

Operation Lucky Bag

Find a wallet, go to jail? New York undercover cops have been leaving wallets and purses around in public spots in the city, then arresting anyone who picks them up and doesn’t present them to a nearby uniformed officer. Some arrestees have otherwise clean records and say they intended to use ID inside the bags […]

Find a wallet, go to jail? New York undercover cops have been leaving wallets and purses around in public spots in the city, then arresting anyone who picks them up and doesn’t present them to a nearby uniformed officer. Some arrestees have otherwise clean records and say they intended to use ID inside the bags to notify the rightful owners. Putting money inside the bags didn’t lead to serious enough charges, in the coppers’ view, so they began salting them with live American Express cards so that the finders could be charged with grand larceny, with four years behind bars. (N.Y. Daily News, more, N.Y. Times, Fox News, ABC News, Gothamist).

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9 Comments

  • Reminds me of the last episode of Seinfeld, which was supposed to be over-the-top comedic exagerration.
    I vaguely remember when “ondercover” cops were interested in breaking up drug rings….

    • By Bill

  • Interesting. Does New York make it a crime not to turn in a lost wallet? No finders keepers? I applaud the general desire for a more honest public, but I’d chalk this up to Sam Francis’ “Anarcho-Tyranny”. Cops know it’ll be easy to bust this crime. Meanwhile, a gang of kids jumping a straphanger is a low priority. I remember that when I lived in New York, the cops loved to hand out tickets to dog owners in the park — always harmless yuppie-types — but would do nothing about million-decibel rap music with obscene lyrics, gang-family picnics that left chicken bones galore, etc. It was easy to see why. Go after the yuppies, and you have an easy, pliant target. Go after the gang-banger-types, and you get shot, stabbed or hit with a civil rights complaint. Too many police look for the path of least resistance.

  • If you turned in the purse to a cop here in Jackson, Mississippi, it would disappear. Really! This happened in the last year when a citizen turned in $5,000 he found. It disappeared from the precinct and no one has been arrested in the theft. So, if I were in NYC and found a wallet or purse containing id., I would try to track the owner down myself (and go to jail).

    • By Jane

  • What can they charge these people with? Theft requires an intention to permanently deprive the rightful owner of his assets. How does walking out of the station demonstrate such an intention?

  • I find it interesting that they continue to do this even though a judge has told them that the law gives citizens something like 5 days to turn in found property. Couple that with the fact they put in credit cards to up the ante and I think you get a pretty good picture of the NYPD’s mindset. I wouldn’t live there on a bet.

    • By Dave_D

  • So, they aren’t just waiting for their normal actions to destroy decency and honesty in everyday Americans, they are taking active steps to do so. Nice.

    I’m SO SO SO SO SO glad I don’t live in New York (or anywhere up in that direction, really).

    • By Deoxy

  • Knowing this about NYC, when I am there next week, I will not pick up and wallet I see. But this is a problem. I am honest and return things to people. But why chance it? I am deterred from doing the right thing.

    This policy just makes it more likely that the wrong people will pick up wallets and purses.

    Then again, if they arrested me, I’d sue them under a variety of theories. So maybe I’ll go wallet hunting after all…

    • By Mike

  • I find it amusing that the NYC mayor has had to go lawsuit shopping in other states, but is willing to put his law-enforcement efforts on entrapping residents and visitors to his locale.

    Or, maybe he’s going to use the fines to add to his personal fortune to buy a chair in the white house.

    • By T

  • Just one more reason why I will never live in a city again. Especially a city like NYC where cops can steal but innocent people can go to jail or be searched without a warrant, in violation of his/her rights under the 4th,and 5th. amendments. sounds more like a police state than a city for decent people to live in.

    Kenneth MacWilliams
    Va.