I spent a week in jail for finding a lost cellphone...legal recourse? [Thread Fail!]

[Slapstick]

So I just spent a week in jail because I found a cell phone in Wal-mart.

Long story short:

- Me and my girl went to Walmart around 1AM to get some snacks (her check gets auto-deposited at midnight on Friday).

- While at Walmart I find a cellphone literally sitting on a shelf.

- I go out to car to smoke a cig cause I was tired and didnt feel like walking around.

- Girl comes up to car 15 minutes later with two police officers next to her...I think "WTF did she do?!"

- Police ask if I found a phone...I say yes and hand it to them...no bullshit on my part.

- Woman whose phone it was was still at Walmart and presses charges against me...police gave me no time to talk to her.

- I get arrested and taken to jail for 8 days for "theft by finding lost property"

Now let me say that I had every intention of turning the phone into Sprint the next day. When in the back of the cop car I asked the cop what I SHOULD have done...he tells me I should have brought it to the police station...I ask HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO DO THAT IF YOU ARE TAKING ME TO JAIL BEFORE IVE HAD TIME TO LEAVE THE FUCKING PARKING LOT?! (minus the fucking part). Cop shrugs shoulders.

Am I the only one that sees something seriously wrong with this? I feel like these cops need to be punished or something...MORE THAN A WEEK IN COUNTY JAIL CAUSE I FOUND A LOST CELL PHONE...WTF?!?!?!

Since you tried out this story and no one believes it you had better think up a new one before Court because you can bet the Judge isn't going to believe this lie. Come back and post your new excuse and I'm sure ATOT will critique it for before you go to Court.

 

[gorcorps]

"her check gets auto-deposited at midnight on Friday"

I'm at a loss here... This info isn't important and has no bearing to the story. Why the fuck do we care that your girls check gets autodeposited?

 

[meltdown75]

wow...

crazy. sorry this happened to you, if true. i really don't understand why you'd get thrown in jail for that. very weird.

btw i still remember you as the guy that said the aliens were here.

 

[bobdole369]

Shens. I doubt this ever happened. Even in Georgia, the armpit of the law. Wait, maybe the OP was black. In that case I believe it did. Just saying. Not racist, just that GA is full of good ole boys.

Oh yeah and there was that time that my wife and I were driving through Macon county on I-75 and a GA state trooper pulled us over because (as he put it) "Ya'll were swervin' all over the road". Granted the 89 firebird we were driving had bad tie rod ends and it WAS real loose in the steering, and my wife isn't the straightest, most attentive driver - after all being a woman and everything - seeing as how she typically checks her speed by driving over those lane divider reflectors and not by the speedometer. We got the "Yup I hear a looooot of drugs come from South Florida - Miami. That where ya'll are from? What brings you through this neck of the woods - Have you been consumin' any alco-hol?" It really didn't help that her shirt said "FUCT" with a pentagram, and I was wearing a Marilyn Manson shirt and torn up corduroys.



OK so maybe it did happen. GA is a fucked up state man.

 

[BarkingGhostar]

So I just spent a week in jail because I found a cell phone in Wal-mart.

Long story short:

- Me and my girl went to Walmart around 1AM to get some snacks (her check gets auto-deposited at midnight on Friday).

- While at Walmart I find a cellphone literally sitting on a shelf.

- I go out to car to smoke a cig cause I was tired and didnt feel like walking around.

- Girl comes up to car 15 minutes later with two police officers next to her...I think "WTF did she do?!"

- Police ask if I found a phone...I say yes and hand it to them...no bullshit on my part.

- Woman whose phone it was was still at Walmart and presses charges against me...police gave me no time to talk to her.

- I get arrested and taken to jail for 8 days for "theft by finding lost property"

Now let me say that I had every intention of turning the phone into Sprint the next day. When in the back of the cop car I asked the cop what I SHOULD have done...he tells me I should have brought it to the police station...I ask HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO DO THAT IF YOU ARE TAKING ME TO JAIL BEFORE IVE HAD TIME TO LEAVE THE FUCKING PARKING LOT?! (minus the fucking part). Cop shrugs shoulders.

Am I the only one that sees something seriously wrong with this? I feel like these cops need to be punished or something...MORE THAN A WEEK IN COUNTY JAIL CAUSE I FOUND A LOST CELL PHONE...WTF?!?!?!

It became theft when you exited the store with it. You could have turned it in to a store employee, but decided to exist the store with it instead.

 

[Fingolfin269]

This is total BS. I find it hilarious that some woman could forget her phone on a shelf yet somehow realize her phone was missing and deduce that you were the one who picked it up off of some random shelf (wtf puts a phone on a shelf??), round up two cops to get you, and then find you in the parking lot??? How long was this 'get a couple of snacks because my boo got paid' trip to Wal-Mart anyway?

 

[sourceninja]

I have a math problem here.

If I get paid on friday of each week. How many days is it between friday's? If i get paid every other week, how many days?

When does that equal 8 days?

 

[Cogman]

This is total BS. I find it hilarious that some woman could forget her phone on a shelf yet somehow realize her phone was missing and deduce that you were the one who picked it up off of some random shelf (wtf puts a phone on a shelf??), round up two cops to get you, and then find you in the parking lot??? How long was this 'get a couple of snacks because my boo got paid' trip to Wal-Mart anyway?

THIS!

How am I supposed to believe a guy that admits to stealing stuff with no remorse?

 

[meltdown75]

definitely shouldn't have left the store with it.

you wouldn't have returned it to the provider... come on.. lol

 

[LTC8K6]

This is total BS. I find it hilarious that some woman could forget her phone on a shelf yet somehow realize her phone was missing and deduce that you were the one who picked it up off of some random shelf (wtf puts a phone on a shelf??), round up two cops to get you, and then find you in the parking lot??? How long was this 'get a couple of snacks because my boo got paid' trip to Wal-Mart anyway?

Store video? Saw him take it and leave. Saw him go to his car in the lot. She either worked there, or went to store security and said her phone was taken when she put it down.

 

[Cogman]

Store video? Saw him take it and leave. Saw him go to his car in the lot. She either worked there, or went to store security and said her phone was taken when she put it down.

To do any of that stuff takes time. How long was he smoking for? An hour? Police aren't omnipresent, it takes time for them to get on scene even after someone calls them.

The OP would have had to have been sitting in the parking lot for quite a long time.

 

[Wyndru]

Maybe it was a sting operation and the phone was planted to randomly catch a thief.

 

[FDF12389]

I have a math problem here.

If I get paid on friday of each week. How many days is it between friday's? If i get paid every other week, how many days?

When does that equal 8 days?

Friday @ midnight is actually Saturday....

 

[Fingolfin269]

Store video? Saw him take it and leave. Saw him go to his car in the lot. She either worked there, or went to store security and said her phone was taken when she put it down.

So the OP went to the store to pick up some snacks, found a phone, person who lost phone remembered exactly where she lost phone, realized it wasn't there(and it did not occur to her upon not finding it that maybe she left it elsewhere), went to security, found someone in security, found a video over the exact spot where she lost phone, figured out exactly who it was who took the phone, went through surveillance to figure out that he left and where he went, grabbed two cops and found him in the parking lot?

That's the best 1AM surveillance crew ever assembled. EVER. And I'm not just talking about Wal-Mart.

Of course this time line is only believable if the OP and his GF are the slowest 1AM snack shoppers in the history of 1AM snack shoppers. (i.e. the OP was smoking at his car at 6AM outside of Wal-Mart)

 

[Red Dawn]

Maybe it was a sting operation and the phone was planted to randomly catch a thief.

Well if that was the case it worked.

 

[PlasmaBomb]

And what the fuck is wrong with that? I believe what you are doing is attacking me and I believe that is against the rules on these forums and are grounds for a ban/infraction.

Please stop or I will report you, you're being COMPLETELY ridiculous and hateful...you know, not EVERYONE here is rich and has money all the time.

Maybe if you are short of money you shouldn't be spending it on snacks as soon as you get it? :hmm:

 

[SpiderWiz]

I'm with the neigh sayers. What's with the pedo bear??

 

[PlasmaBomb]

LOL how old are you? I ask because it's obvious that you're scurrying around trying to manipulate your image, when if you had any perspective, you'd realize that nobody gives a damn. We'll laugh at you, but that doesn't mean you're important.

Teenagers are completely absorbed with manipulating image. Adults just manage it.

Read the thread...

23

 

[dud]

I no believe you.

 

[Taughnter]

Taking, finding...in this case both are mutually acceptable as the phone was FOUND and I did TAKE it...how else was I supposed to get it into my possession if I may ask?

You're not, that's the entire point. I'm not here to tell you that you're an ass for doing the wrong thing, because most people don't know what to do in this situation. People just assume "finders keepers" is the law, and that is not how property works.

There's a pretty fine line between what you did and theft by taking, and it's all (obviously) about intent. The reason, I suspect, you were arrested is that you picked up the phone, apparently didn't ask anyone around if it was theirs, and did not contact store employees to see if someone lost a phone. Sure seems to me like the police could have seen that as "intent to deprive" regardless of what you said your intention was. I'm sure the phone's owner must have insisted on pressing charges.

 

[geno]

At that point.. you shoulda taken it to Lost & Found at Walmart... turned it in.. and be done with it.

This is what any normal person would have done. Still, doesn't mean what happened was right.

 

[JulesMaximus]

When you steal a cell phone, always take the sim card out and toss it in the trash. Everyone knows this.

Stupid criminal.

 

[sjwaste]

This is 100% bullshit until the OP posts back the docket info. Unless you're in the middle of nowhere, it's going to be online. Let's see it.

 

[sourceninja]

Friday @ midnight is actually Saturday....

And he was arrested on a saturday then (friday after midnight)...

So again, she get's paid on saturdays, how many days between saturday and saturday?

Maybe she was out getting high and couldn't come get him on saturday?

 

[Nik]

At that point.. you shoulda taken it to Lost & Found at Walmart... turned it in.. and be done with it.

Yep.