Rabbi Noah Muroff finds $100K of forgotten cash in desk bought on Craigslist

IT IS a classic moral dilemma. You find a life-changing amount of money that someone has obviously forgotten about - do you keep it?

New Haven man Noah Muroff and his wife knew the answer right away.

The couple bought a desk from Craigslist for less than $200 but had to take it apart when it didn't fit into their home office.

"The desk didn't fit into this office by a fraction of an inch," he told the local WTNH News 8.

So the couple tried to take the hinges off the office door.

When that didn't work, they took the top off the desk and noticed a plastic shopping bag stuffed behind its drawers.

"And in that bag ... it looks like a hundred dollar bill," recalls Mr Muroff, who is a rabbi at the local school.

"We open it up and it's full of cash. We count it up and there's $98,000 cash sitting in the bag."

Just an ordinary desk from the outside.

"Right away my wife and I sort of you know looked at each other and said, 'We can't keep this money'."

The desk's original owner told the pair she'd assembled it herself, so they knew the cash belonged to her.

The woman had inherited the cash, but thought she had lost it. She didn't realise it had fall behind the desk's drawers.

Rabbi Noah took his young children along when he took the money back to the woman, believing it was a chance to teach them a lesson about honesty.

Rabbi Noah’s stint with the money was fleeting, but he made time for some fun photos.

The woman, who is known only as Patty, was overwhelmed with the good deed. She refunded the purchase price and insisted Noah take reward cash.

She left him with this note: "I cannot thank you enough for your honesty and integrity. I do not think there are too many people in this world that would have done what you did by calling me. I will be forever grateful."

We think she might be right.