TEXAS COUPLE GETS TO KEEP PART OF FOUND FORTUNE

The federal government has agreed to let a Texas couple who found $300,000
last year keep a large part of it after all.

In early December, the couple, a maintenance worker and a kidney transplant
patient, found the money in a bag beside a road in Dallas. They gave it to
police, who said the couple could keep it if no one claimed it in 60 days.

But a short time later the Dallas police gave the money to the federal Drug
Enforcement Administration and asked for part of it to be returned to the
department for law enforcement use.

An attorney said Wednesday the couple considered their recent settlement
with the federal government to be a major victory.

"They are thrilled," said attorney Emily Shoup, who said the couple asked
not to be identified.

But, Shoup said, "they still feel slighted in the fact that they were
promised to get it all back and they didn't."

As part of a series of stories in May, The Kansas City Star reported that
the Dallas police had circumvented Texas law when they gave the money to
the federal government.

The series showed police across the country often hand off money and
property suspected of being the proceeds of drug crimes to federal law
enforcement for forfeiture. The federal agency then returns a portion to
the local department to keep.

Dallas police said after the couple gave them the money, they found traces
of cocaine on the bag and a specially trained dog also signaled the
presence of drugs on the money. A gun also was found in the bag.

That evidence, however, probably was not enough to forfeit the money as
drug proceeds under state law, police said. So police gave the money to the
DEA because federal forfeiture law is not as strict as it is in most states.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Brock Stevenson said Wednesday that federal law
does not allow anyone to keep money involved in a drug deal. He was able,
however, to reach a compromise.

"What we did was try to accommodate the people who found the money and also
to take away the fruits of the drug trade," Stevenson said. "I'm very
pleased that they could (keep some). It was their good fortune."

Stevenson would not say how much money was returned to the couple. He said
the Dallas police had requested a share of the money the federal government
gets to keep.

Shoup said the couple still is asking the city of Dallas to return $15,000
that disappeared from the property room while police were holding the
$300,000. Until that complaint is resolved, Shoup said she would not reveal
the amount of money the couple got to keep. She has said it was a large
portion of the total.

Sgt. Hollis Edwards, a spokesman for the Dallas Police Department, said the
investigation into the missing money was inconclusive and ended when a
civilian employee quit the department. Edwards said the department did not
have enough evidence to file charges.