Cleveland Man Who Found $640,000 Returns Cash

Jet, Feb 26, 2001

A Cleveland man who found $640,000 that fell out of an armored car said he waited two days before returning it because he was contemplating how to claim reward money.

Mark Morant, 38, who has two jobs as a security guard, was walking one morning outside of the downtown Cleveland building where he works when three, 42-pound bundles of cash fell out of the back of an armored truck. The truck had just left the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland to make deliveries when the bags apparently fell through an unlatched door.

Morant returned all $640,000 two days later, with the cash still wrapped in plastic.

Ken Kennard, security director of the Federal Reserve Bank, said Morant called from a nearby pay phone before he arrived with the money to say he was "concerned and worried, and wanted to know what to do."

"He said he had the money, and he was concerned that he may not have done the right thing. And he wanted some help and guidance as to what to do," said Kennard, who talked to Morant for a few minutes and persuaded him to come into the bank.

In an interview with The Cleveland Plain Dealer, Morant accused FBI officials of twisting things around when they suggested he returned the money because he thought it included marked bills. FBI agent Stu Shoaff earlier had said Morant told agents he was concerned the money was somehow marked.

News reports about the missing money, along with the FBI's release of a description given by a witness who reported seeing a well-dressed man pick up the packages at the busy intersection, "put the pressure on this guy to turn it in," Shoaff said.

Morant said he waited because he was trying to figure out how to get the $75,000 reward offered in connection with the money's disappearance, but FBI agents gave him a disrespectful reception when he brought his bundles to the Federal Reserve Bank.

"They told me to toss my keys at them," Morant said in an interview with The Cleveland Plain Dealer. "They told me, `You are going to be here a while.' They drilled me. They told me, `You're not getting a reward and you're lucky you're not going to jail.'"

Federal prosecutors decided not to file charges after reviewing the evidence, said William Edwards, an assistant in the U.S. attorney's office.