After Turning in Someone’s Money, Guy Buys a Chance

People who find gobs of money and do the right thing by giving it back always get my admiration. Maybe because I’m never so sure I’d be one of them.

You leave your purse in my cab, I’d drive all over town to try to get it back to you. Unless I discovered you had five grand stuffed inside. Then there’s a chance I’ll rationalize you as a drug dealer and decide to give the money to my favorite charity. And charity begins at home.

But here’s a tale about someone who did the right thing and wound up rewarded in a way most of us can only dream about. Maybe there’s a lesson in this tale. . . .

Ismael Ambriz, 33, who lives with his wife and their two young sons near Universal Studios in Los Angeles, isn’t poverty-stricken. But he will tell you with a chuckle that he’s a good stretch from upscale: “My wife and I both work hard and it takes us a good month just to save for one family night out.”

Ambriz is a government maintenance worker. Though it’s a good job, he says, it doesn’t produce a lot of excitement. Until last December. That’s when one day while on a job site, he found an envelope on the sidewalk. Inside it were cashier’s checks totaling $325,000.

Maybe cashier’s checks aren’t the same as cash, but you can bet a few folks would have tried to find some way to get them into their bank account. But Ambriz never hesitated: He took the envelope to a nearby building security office in an attempt to get the checks to the owner.

Sure enough, the fellow who lost the envelope came by in a desperate search. It was his company’s checks, but he was so grateful to Ambriz, he gave him $200 of his own money as a reward.

“To me, that $200 was a lot of money,” Ambriz said. “I wanted to save it for something special for the family.”

So Ambriz did what I would have done to ensure the money stayed in a safe place, away from temptation: He gave it to his wife to hide away.

Ismael and Elizabeth Ambriz both come from large families, and activities with them and their own children kept them so busy they went months without thinking about the $200.

But then in March, Elizabeth Ambriz was among the chaperons for her fourth-grade son Joshua’s class field trip to Mission San Juan Capistrano. Along the way, they passed the Irvine Spectrum. Another parent raved that it was a fun place to combine dinner and a movie with some shopping.

For the Ambrizes, Orange County was just the place you might pass through on your way to San Diego. Certainly not a destination for a movie. But based on the friend’s suggestion, Elizabeth Ambriz proposed the Irvine Spectrum for a family outing.

“I didn’t really want to drive all that way just for a movie,” Ismael Ambriz recalls now. “But my wife said, ‘Let’s take the $200 we’ve saved away and make it a real family night.’ ”

So down the I-5 they headed for dinner at Wolfgang Puck’s and a viewing of “U.S. Marshals,” starring Tommy Lee Jones.

After dinner, as they walked across the plaza to the movie theaters, Ambriz said, they spotted just about the most beautiful car he’d ever seen, a restored 1964 silver-blue Corvette Stingray.

The car was being raffled off by a charity, the Marconi Foundation for Kids, based in Tustin. It supports numerous groups that help children, such as Olive Crest, Covenant House and even a children’s orphanage in the Baja Peninsula.

Ambriz decided that after the movie, he’d buy a couple of raffle tickets for the Stingray.

But later on, the raffle line was too long, so Ambriz decided to skip it--instead he would just donate $10 of his $200 reward money to the Marconi Foundation. (It collected $80,000 from this raffle.)

Ambriz: “The kids were tired and wanted to go, but my wife says, ‘No, no, you wanted the raffle tickets, go ahead. We’ll wait for you.’ ” So he stood in line and he bought the two tickets.

Now you know he won the Corvette, or I wouldn’t be sharing this tale with you. Even so, there’s lots of fun in the Ambrizes’ reaction.

Ambriz: “Driving home, I told my wife that car is going to be mine. And we laughed. Then we just forgot about it.”

But six months later, upon returning from another family outing at the Getty Museum, they got a call from the Marconi Foundation with the good news that one of his two raffle tickets had been selected. Corvette Information magazine estimates the car’s value at likely $35,000 to $45,000.

“Wow, I mean we called everybody we knew to tell them; family, neighbors. I got cash offers for the car right away.”

Ambriz quickly moved his pool table out of his garage to make room for his new prize. But he didn’t get to drive it home; he had to have it towed.

That’s because his insurance company wasn’t permitted to add an antique car to his policy for its full value. He was told he had to go to an insurance company that specialized in such cars. So now he’s searching for the right one.

“Actually, I really don’t think we’ll drive it that much,” he said. “It’s only a two-seater and we’re a family of four. But it sure gives us one heck of a showpiece. That is one pretty baby in my garage! You should hear it purr.”

I talked to Ambriz by telephone, and the natural question was, was he convinced winning the car was his reward for doing the right thing last December? But Ambriz is a humble man who really didn’t have much to say about it.

“I do believe in fate, and I guess that’s what happened,” he said.

So I called back later when Elizabeth Ambriz was home from work. She had a lot to say about it.

“Of course there was a connection,” she said with enthusiasm. “My husband is such a good man. A good family man. He never would have dreamed of keeping that envelope. This car is definitely a reward for doing the right thing.”

OK, so if it happens to you or me, we know better than to expect a new Corvette out of the deal. Still, it’s delightful to see when it happens to people as nice as the Ambrizes.

Jerry Hicks’ column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Readers may reach Hicks by calling the Times Orange County Edition at (714) 966-7823 or by fax to (714) 966-7711, or e-mail to jerry.hicks@latimes.com.