Merry X-Mas! Good Samaritan Returns Wallet Stuffed With $5K

Couple returns wallet stuffed with cash

Talk about some good fortune.

It was a case of wallet lost, wallet found -- in 15 minutes, with $5,000 cash in the billfold left untouched.

Robert Slatkin was meandering around Bloomingale's, Christmas shopping with his family, when he realized his wallet was gone. He scoured the leather handbags section where he had been and checked out the lost-and-found department, but it was nowhere to be found.

"I just started shaking," the 46-year-old owner of a fitness and nutrition company told The New York Post. "I just said, 'Oh no, it's gone.'"

A disheartened Slatkin eventually gave up, left the store and began walking dejectedly down Lexington Avenue when he got a call from American Express. He feared the worst, but it turned out it was the best possible news ever.

A couple found Slatkin's wallet on a scarf display. They asked a store manager to put it in a safe and called American Express, which contacted the owner.

"I picked it up and saw all of the cash," Sandi Castro, who found Slatkin's wallet while she was shopping with her fiancée, told the Post. "I felt panicked for him and felt like I needed to get it back to him as soon as possible."

Back at Bloomingdale's, the couple handed the grateful Slatkin his wallet, and he insisted on giving them a $300 reward. He also invited them to use the indoor pool of his Upper East Side apartment building. While pleased Slatkin was so thankful the couple returned the wallet, Castro never thought twice about giving it back to its rightful owner, cash intact.

"I was just raised to believe that what goes around, comes around," Castro told the Post. "I hope everybody would do the same."

Copyright AP - Associated Press
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