News

Honest mall worker turns in $12,400 left by armored company

January 28, 2004

MASSAPEQUA, N.Y. - A maintenance worker at the Sunrise Mall in Massapequa stumbled upon more than $12,000 cash forgotten by the company that fills the mall ATM with cash, according to a report in Newsday.

The honest worker, Stephen Bills, immediately turned over the money to his boss, who called police, said Alton Williams, a Nassau County police detective.

"We have a Good Samaritan who must be a saint," Williams said. "He didn't take one $20 bill for himself. There are some good people left in the world."

Bills was getting cleaning equipment out of a maintenance closet in an isolated hallway at the mall on on Jan. 21 when he discovered piles of $20 bills bound with rubber bands. He brought the $12,400 to his boss, who took it to the mall bank to verify that it wasn't counterfeit.

Williams, on a hunch, called the Brinks armored car office in Brooklyn. "I asked them if they were missing anything," Williams said. "Reluctantly, embarrassingly, they said, 'Yeah, we are missing something.' I said, 'I have good news for you.'"

A manager at the Brinks Brooklyn office declined to comment.

According to Newsday, the story quickly circulated among mall employees.

"How do you leave that sitting around?" asked Erica Lockhart, senior sales manager at the Nine West shoe store. "I told people in the mall about it and they were all like, 'Did he keep it? They were mad that he did turn it in."