Maine police search for ‘older’ man accused of stealing $7,400 he found on the side of the road

Police in a sleepy Maine town are searching for an “older” man accused of snagging $7,400 that fell off the roof of a stranger’s car.

The week-long manhunt, headed by the Kennebunk Police Department, was sparked when an airhead driver mistakenly left the hefty wad of cash on the roof of his car before driving off on Oct. 15.

The driver had just sold a car for $7,400 in cash and was apparently so distracted by his own elation that he left the earnings on top of his vehicle and started up his engine.

Somewhere between the sale site and his home, the cash careened off the top of the car and flopped onto the side of the road, according to photos shared by the Kennebunk Police Department.

The seller didn’t realize his fluke until he returned home empty-handed despite the sale he clinched.

Later that evening, two men were captured on a dashboard camera collecting the small fortune on the side of Fletcher Street, near the Kennebunk High School.

An “older male” dressed in a solid blue shirt, brown pants, and a baseball hat, allegedly scooped the abandoned cash into his arms and made off in a dark grey Honda CR-V, according to the police department.

Police told WMTW that the second man seen in the photos was the father of the cash’s rightful owner. They explained that the well-meaning father drove to the scene in search of the missing money, only to find the alleged thief had arrived there first.

The Post reached out to the Kennebunk Police Department for comment.

A spokesman for the police department told the local Maine outlet that the alleged thief could face criminal charges because there was no “finders keepers” precedent.

Maine law is bizarrely strict about lost items, with processes in place for reporting lost and found goods worth as little as $3.

Any lost and found items estimated to be worth at least $3 must be turned over to the town’s clerk within a week. The finder must also tell them where it was found and post some sort of notification about the unclaimed item in a public place.

Goods worth more than $10 follow the same steps with the addition of a notification published in a local or county newspaper, depending on which is more readily available.

Under Maine’s criminal code, a person is guilty of theft if they obtain or exercise “control over the property of another that the person knows to have been lost.”

Because of the cash’s value, the alleged thief risks being slapped with a Class C crime that could land him behind bars for up to five years on top of a $5,000 fine, according to the Maine Attorney General’s office.