Struggling Waitress Gets To Keep Her $12,000 Tip

Why and how police got involved in this I will never understand!  But police in Minnesota will be returning a $12,000 tip she received.  She must have provided some good service!

Stacy Knutson, a server at the Fryn' Pan Restaurant in Moorhead, received the $12,000 tip back in November 2011.  The customer left the takeout box with the cash inside and when Knutson followed the customer out to parking lot and tried to give her back the box but the woman told her to keep it. When Knutson opened it, she found $12,000 in cash.

Knutson, is a mother and has five children.  She did what she thought was the right things and called the police to turn in the cash as lost property.  At first, the police told her the cash would be hers if it remained unclaimed for 60 days.  At the end of the 60 days, the police department told Knutson that she would have to wait another 30 days to get the money.  Then the police told her she would not receive the money at all because it smelled of marijuana and had been seized under a state law.  That's when she hired an attorney because something else started to smell funny.  Police offered Stacy Knutson a $1,000 as a reward for turning the cash in. She refused the reward and filed suit.

In affidavits filed as part of the lawsuit, Knutson and two other restaurant employees said they detected no odor at all.  After the lawsuit was filed, and on Thursday, April 12th, Knutson's attorney said the department had changed its mind and will return the $12,000 to her.

It was well known, in the small town of Moorhead, that Knutson and her husband were having some financial problems and her attorney believes the money was intended as a gift to the family.  I believe that, too.  But being the type of person she was she did the right thing.  I guess the police didn't know who they were dealing with.  Shame On Them!