Can an act of generosity be expensive? Robert Withington, a 56-year-old American, will not say otherwise. As reported the dispatch Wednesday August 30, 2023, the man was a victim of his honesty. The story dates back to May 2023. Robert Withington makes a startling discovery near a parking lot as he exits the bank. There, in front of him, on the floor, is a bag. “I went out to the parking lot, I saw something on the ground and there was no one around, so I picked it up”he told the American media Hearst Connecticut Media. Specifying: “It’s not like it was planned”. The owner of a dog training company also told the newspaper that he took the bag “impulsively”. This impulse will ultimately cost him dearly. On August 25, 2023, several months after the discovery of this bag containing 5,000 dollars in cash, he finally decided to report it to the police. But she accuses him of the third degree theft of this money which corresponded to the municipal taxes of the city of Trumbull, in the State of Connecticut. The bag had been accidentally dropped by an office worker.
“I just looked down, I was like, ‘There’s something there'”
Questioned by the city’s investigators, the 50-year-old returned to the course of events: “I’m fresh out of the bank. I’ve just recovered from the covid. I had my mask. When I got out, there was no one outside, but there was a policeman parked to the left. He had sunglasses on, looking at his cell phone. I just looked down, I thought, ‘There’s something there. So I just took him under my arm as if nothing had happened and went back to my car”. On Tuesday, September 5, 2023, he will appear in Bridgeport State Superior Court for third-degree larceny and will face up to five years in prison and up to $5,000 in fines. “Anyone who knows me knows that I am all about generosity”, he assured the police. “If I had known I was wrong in the first place, I would have returned it immediately. I didn’t think I was doing anything wrong.” According to an associate professor of accounting and taxation at the University of New Haven quoted by Hearst Connecticut Mediathe flight being “by definition, a crime that involves the unlawful taking of another’s property without threat of violence“, the accusation go “having to prove that he voluntarily took it.”