Money troubles
For 20 years, Curtis Smith Sr. carried a rare $1,000 bill in his pocket with no intention of spending it.
"Nobody ever knew I had it," Smith explained. "I thought of it as a novelty."
Smith, 71, expected to keep the note safely tucked in his pants until the day he died.
Instead, he kept it in his pants until the day in April that Pine Lawn police took it away from him.
The bill might be back in those pants today, except that Mayor Adrian Wright also fancied it as a novelty.
So it sits in limbo in the mayor's safe at City Hall.
"They took my money and gave me a check instead," complained Smith, a retired truck driver from Jennings. "If you take a personal item from someone, you should give it back."
St. Louis County police and prosecutors looked into the circumstances and decided that Pine Lawn officials broke no laws, even though the note has a collector's value of more than the amount returned to Smith.
Story from STL Today
For 20 years, Curtis Smith Sr. carried a rare $1,000 bill in his pocket with no intention of spending it.
"Nobody ever knew I had it," Smith explained. "I thought of it as a novelty."
Smith, 71, expected to keep the note safely tucked in his pants until the day he died.
Instead, he kept it in his pants until the day in April that Pine Lawn police took it away from him.
The bill might be back in those pants today, except that Mayor Adrian Wright also fancied it as a novelty.
So it sits in limbo in the mayor's safe at City Hall.
"They took my money and gave me a check instead," complained Smith, a retired truck driver from Jennings. "If you take a personal item from someone, you should give it back."
St. Louis County police and prosecutors looked into the circumstances and decided that Pine Lawn officials broke no laws, even though the note has a collector's value of more than the amount returned to Smith.
Story from STL Today