Dirty money

From today's Orlando Sentinel-

Alfred Magill doesn't expect that he will ever see his $35,000 again. The best he can do is hope he wins it back.

On Tuesday, Magill took his daughter to Colonial High School to register her. When he realized he didn't have the right paperwork, he dashed out, leaving his fanny pack behind. Inside was more than $42,000 in cash, 33 credit cards and five debit cards.

He rushed back to the school, but the pack was gone. That was the money he planned to take on his next bi-monthly gambling trip to Las Vegas this week.

He remembered that two girls had been sitting nearby.

The Orange County Sheriff's Office tracked down Catherine Tirado, 16, and Elizabeth De La Rosa, 17. At first De La Rosa said she didn't touch the bag, but later she told a deputy that she and Tirado took it into a cafeteria bathroom, pocketed a wad of cash and dumped the other contents into a trash can.

Deputies then turned their attention to Tirado, who was in a foreign-language class. As she was being led out for questioning, she told the deputy she didn't have a book bag. But her teacher chased them down and turned over the student's small bag.

When deputies opened it, they found $6,235.

Then De La Rosa admitted she too had cash -- in her underwear. A female school administrator watched as the deputy retrieved $1,000.

It was unclear what happened to the rest of the money.

Both girls were taken to the state Juvenile Assessment Center in Orlando on a charge of felony grand theft.

Reached at her home late Wednesday, Tirado would not comment. De La Rosa could not be reached for comment.

What the girls did was morally wrong. But if De La Rosa left the money laying around, is it really grand theft? If the credit cards weren't used, its like finders keepers. What do you think?

De La Rosa is also plain nuts to be carrying around that kind of cash. With a lively drug trade in this state, I'd be wondering where that money came from.

Linked to- Basil's Blog, Stuck on Stupid,