In an interesting twist, Kelly Janeth Mejia, a police officer who normally would recover a stolen iPad, reportedly stole one herself. Security cameras saw her remove it from someone else’s bin at a TSA security checkpoint. Her response to the accusation? “I found it!”
After swiping it from the bin, she was shortly thereafter detained for questioning – she said she didn’t see who put it down, but picked it up as “found property” and slipped it in her bag. When asked what she planned to do with it, she simply responded “Keep it.”
She had been on the force for 6 years, with 4 of those as a sworn officer. Her sworn written statement about the incident reads as follows:
I sat down in my waiting area and did not see the flight workers in the area and was unable to turn in the notebook prior to being contacted by the police
Unfortunately, finders-keepers never managed to become a property law in Florida (or anywhere, for that matter), and Mejia now faces grand theft charges, as the value of the iPad was more than $300. And sadly, her written statement did not match up with her answer of “keep it” that she stupidly offered during questioning.
You’d think that a cop would know that you can’t just keep a valuable lost item, right? RIGHT?!
