Stolen Wallet Logs Many Miles Before Owner Pockets It Again
Laurel Canyon resident Howard Packer feared that he had seen the last of his wallet when it was plucked from his leather bag during a visit to the Century City shopping mall on April 18.
Packer, a Canadian citizen and United States resident for the past 14 years, had already replaced his green card, California driver’s license and assorted credit cards when he received a call June 18 from South Hamilton, Mass.
Carolyn Quinn, manager of the Talbots women’s wear store, told Packer that his wallet had been found by a customer in the pocket of a raincoat when she tried it on.
In a note mailed along with the wallet, Quinn told Packer that his wallet is “a jet setter, sans $80. So glad the green card was still enclosed.” The letter explained that the raincoat arrived in a shipment from the South Coast Plaza mall in Costa Mesa.
Only the cash was missing.
The pickpocket apparently went into a Talbots branch store in Century City and dropped the wallet into the pocket of a raincoat, which was later sent to the Costa Mesa store and then to Massachusetts, Packer said.
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