Still no takers for $10,000 found on freeway

A month after about $10,000 in cash was found along Highway 101, only a few futile efforts have been made to claim it.

A couple of people called, saying something like, “Yeah, it’s my money, I lost it,” sheriff’s Capt. Matt McCaffrey said last week.

But the callers couldn’t give accurate details on denominations or how the money was found, he said.

The real owner of the money has just over two months left in the 90-day legal timeline to make a claim.

It was found June 5 along the highway near the Mendocino County line.

A Sonoma County correctional officer on his way to work spotted it on the shoulder, some of it blowing in the wind. He collected about $5,000 and turned it in at work. Deputies were sent to the area, and they gathered another $5,000 or so.

The jail officer is eligible to get the money he found because he wasn’t on duty at the time, McCaffrey said.

But the deputies can’t keep the money they found because they were working as law enforcement officers. That $5,000 would go to the county’s general fund if the owner doesn’t come forward, McCaffrey said.

Officials have withheld details such as how the money was bundled and what denominations it was in to make sure only the true owner could make a legal claim.

Sheriff’s investigators have worked with other law enforcement agencies in and outside Sonoma County to see if the money might be connected to any cases, including thefts or drug sales.

They’ve found nothing.

Law enforcement officers speculate that the highway cash wasn’t innocently lost. Sometimes when someone is about to be stopped by an officer or deputy, and they have illegally gotten cash, they dump it.

"It’s not uncommon for us to make traffic stops and to find large amounts of cash” near the car, McCaffrey said. “People say, ‘That’s not mine.’ ”