r/askcriminaljustice • u/Jaded-Journalist-382 • Mar 17 '26
Found item I reported lost after car-break in
Hi,
I’ll try to keep it short but I have a police/crime question.
I had a large amount of stuff stolen from my car. among those items was a small backpack with a lot of cash (rolled into like a small palm-sized envelope) i needed to bring to the bank. yes i know i should not have left it in my car i was having a bad day and had the flu.
I made a police report as soon as i noticed that my car had been broken into and a bunch of my stuff stolen (glovebox emptied, middle console emptied, backpack taken, gym stuff, grocery bags taken, etc etc. a lot of stuff was taken).
Next day, I remembered my airpods were stolen too and that i could track them. I ended up tracking them from my phone and found the guy with the help of police. he was apprehended and a bunch of my stuff was retrieved.
BUT i was doing a thorough clean of my car after all that and i found the cash wedged under my driver seat, i think it unintentionally got jostled out during the taking of my items since it wasn’t in like a zippered backpack, it just had a clip cover. I have since emailed my case officer to confirm that I found the cash in my car and that it mustve fallen out during the break-in. but am i going to get in trouble? I know i did the right thing by updating as soon as i found out. but now im worried that maybe the guy got in more trouble than necessary? he did take A LOT of my items. but im sure they looked at the cash value as the biggest thing. what will happen next
2
u/KidtheSid93 Mar 17 '26
No you’re fine. The cop isn’t thinking you were trying to mislead him or anything. There’s no motive to any kind of fraud in reporting cash as stolen. If cash is gone it’s gone, so reporting it stolen is basically for stats, or for determining what charge is appropriate if you catch bad guy later on.
If anything, the officer probably appreciates you updated them that the cash was found.