WHEELING, Illinois (CBS) — A suburban man did the right thing when he found a wallet with nearly $6,000 in cash at Chicago Executive Airport recently, and he got a big thank you for it.
Last month, before heading to work, Bill Winquist was watching the planes land at Chicago Executive Airport in Wheeling when he noticed an almost laughably large wallet lying in the parking lot.
“How could he fit so much in there? It was pretty overcrowded,” Winquist said. “I picked it up and it was just amazing.”
An iconic scene from “Seinfeld” — in which Jason Alexander’s character, played by George Costanza, tries to close his ridiculously oversized wallet, only to have its contents fly out onto the street — was all Winquist could think of.
“I laid it all out, tagged it, so we knew exactly what was here,” Winquist said. “It was exactly $5,784.”
After counting and tagging all the money in the wallet, Winquist tried in vain to contact the owner. So what did he do with all the money?
“This man did the honorable thing and called law enforcement,” said Prospect Heights Police Chief Bill Caponigro.
Winquist, a Franklin Park native, was honored by the Prospect Heights Police Department with an exceptional citizenship award for handing over the money: every penny of the nearly $6,000.
“We get a lot of ‘lost’ wallets. There’s rarely any money in them,” Chief Caponigro said. “I knew right away that we had to honor this man.”
Winquist has undoubtedly been asked many times why he did what he did in this instance.
“It’s what I would want someone to do for me if I had lost the money,” he said. “Hopefully there are more people — more than not — who would do the same thing.”
The money and wallet have been returned to the owner, who wishes to remain anonymous.
CBS News Chicago reports that the man was eating in his car in the airport observation area the night before when he must have lost his wallet. The money was supposed to go toward a new car.
