It pays to be honest. But it also paaaayyyyyyssss to be honest.
That’s one of the key takeaways gleaned by a scrupulous hygiene services professional this week when a Melbourne Magistrates Court rewarded his honesty by allowing him to mop up a considerable chunk of the $100,000 he discovered while cleaning toilets at Channel Nine’s Melbourne headquarters three years ago.
Mysteriously unfolding like the inciting incident of a Guy Ritchie film but with no apparent retribution from heavy dudes with shotguns, janitor Chamindu Amarsinghe chanced upon a bin overflowing with $50 and $100 notes at the network’s offices in Docklands before alerting his superiors who called the police.
Note: At no point did he consider stuffing the cash into a garbage bag, moving to Bendigo then living off his lucky toilet money for a few years.
A subsequent police investigation into the origin of the cash proved fruitless as no one came forward to claim it.
This week, the Melbourne Magistrates Court invoked the finders-keepers rule, determining that $81,597 of the unclaimed cash will go to Amarsinghe, with the remaining $19,500 to go to the state.
“There’s no reason why such honesty should go unrewarded,” Magistrate Michael Smith said.
Let that be a le$$on to us all.
Via The Age
