This has been covered elsewhere, but I don't have a current link to it. Essentially, there is a California law that says if you find something, you're compelle

This has been covered elsewhere, but I don't have a current link to it. Essentially, there is a California law that says if you find something, you're compelled to either return it to its owner, or turn it over to the police if the rightful owner can't be found. So the very fact that he failed to turn it into the police converted it from an act of "finding" to an act of "stealing".