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Ethics gut check: Possible crime money found, do you keep it or turn it in?

Asked by Hypocrisy_Central (26879points) September 3rd, 2011

Imagine yourself hiking, mountain biking, walking the dog, etc, in a rugged outdoor area. In front of you, what appears to be litter is blowing across the trail. When you get closer, you see they are $100 dollar bills. You start to gather them together and they seem to be originating somewhere in the brush. As you get closer to where it seem to be coming from, you see something on the ground. When you get there, you find the corpse of a man nicely dressed. By the decay he has been there a long time and by the blood stained shirt, he took a couple to the chest and bled out. He has a pistol clutched in one hand and a satchel lying near by. There are a few bundle of hundreds on the ground near the satchel, some of which are scattering in the wind, plus other that are still in the satchel. If you bothered to look, you will see the man carries nothing, no wallet, or anything to I.D. him. Inside the satchel there are about 18 to 22 bundles of hundreds in $5,000 dollar lots. No one seems to know he was there. What are you going to do, bring back a ranger, pocket the money, or leave it as you found it? What if you had recently lost your income, or knew you were going to be soon, would that affect your decision? Would you compromise and take some of the money before contacting a ranger? What would you do, if you figured you were not going to get into trouble, would you still do it that way you would have originally?

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