By Beauty Damned

Scruples? I Know Not of Scruples.

Scenario: Guy gets arrested under suspicion of drunk driving. The police confiscate his cash which includes an extremely rare $1000 bill. The mayor of Pine Lawn, Missouri decides that he wants the bill. So he takes it. When the man who was arrested is released and wants his money back, they write him a check and the mayor keeps his thousand dollar bill. The city says this is perfectly fine and that there's nothing the guy can do about it. They'e treating the thousand dollar bill as if it is nothing but plain old currency and that to be written a check for one thousand in exchange is fair and even, but the reality is that the bill is worth far more than one thousand dollars because of its rarity, and the guy is not being properly compensated. There is no way that you can say a thousand dollar check is equal in any way to the thousand dollar bill. The real issue is that the thousand dollar bill is more of an object than it is actually money. The sentimental value of the bill to its owner is far greater than its actual monetary value. The guy has been carrying it around for twenty years. It should be treated as property and be returned to him in the exact form that it was taken. I think this is wrong. Really wrong. And I think that mayor should be tarred and feathered for being a selfish, unscrupulous worm. And what makes him think that whatever comes out of someone's pockets in the police station is free for him to take as he pleases? What a terrible person. And finally, by making the statement that he wants it purely for novelty purposes, the mayor is inadvertently conceding to the fact that he has taken something that has more than mere monetary value. Something which does not belong to him. And when you want to make a trade with someone, you ask. "Hey, want to trade me that thousand dollar bill for ten ones? No? Bummer." Not: "I'll take that!" ...Asshole.

PINE LAWN, Mo. (AP) -- The mayor of this St. Louis suburb fancied a rare $1,000 bill that was seized in a traffic stop, so the town wrote the driver a check and the politician kept the cash.

Not a fair trade, according to the driver, a retired trucker who said he carried the bill in his pocket for two decades. "If you take a personal item from someone, you should give it back,'' Curtis Smith Sr., 71, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. County police and prosecutors found that Pine Lawn officials broke no laws. But Don Schneider, a spokesman for St. Louis County Prosecutor Robert McCulloch, said "it's a bad idea for a city official or politician to have access to evidence. It creates the appearance of impropriety. We don't advocate doing business that way.'' Calls to City Hall on Thursday seeking comment from Mayor Adrian Wright were not answered.

Experts said collectors will pay $1,300 to $3,500 for the bill showing President Grover Cleveland, depending on its condition. The U.S. government printed its last $1,000 bill in 1934 and took the denomination out of circulation in 1969 after technology replaced paper notes for transfers of large sums. Smith said he got his $1,000 bill through a banking friend about 20 years ago, when that sum could buy what today would cost $1,771, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

Smith's note was seized last April when he was arrested on suspicion of drunken driving. Smith, who lives in nearby Jennings, said he was sleeping off a few drinks in his truck on a lot he owns. According to an official report, Smith was taken to the police station, where the mayor watched as police counted Smith's money, including the $1,000 bill, several $100 bills and a few $2 bills.
Wright said he wanted the bill, which portrays President Grover Cleveland, "as a novelty item, as few people have ever had the opportunity to see a bill in that denomination.'' The mayor fetched 10 $100 bills, and police switched the money and deposited it in an account for seized drug assets, the report said.
In September, county prosecutors refused to charge Smith with selling drugs and ordered the money returned. The city issued Smith a check for $3,231 to cover the $1,000 bill and his other cash.

Smith said he repeatedly called and visited police to ask for his rare bill, but officials refused to return it. City Attorney Mark Zoole said the bill never left City Hall and would be returned to Smith, should he ask for it, once it was no longer considered evidence in a criminal case. Zoole noted, "He, of course, would have to pay for it.''

PAY FOR IT? IT'S ALREADY HIS!!! Who are these numbskulls?

Posted by Maria at January 15, 2004 04:44 PM | TrackBack