[richlevy]

Originally Posted by Clodfobble

I guess it kind of makes sense... Like if I stole a dollar from you, and bought a winning lottery ticket with it, do I owe you the stolen dollar, or the million bucks I won?

According to our courts here in Philadelphia, you owe it all back, even if it can't be conclusively proven that it was stolen.

http://news.yahoo.com/jury-us-govt-r...194706140.html

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — The U.S. government rightfully seized a set of never-circulated 1933 gold coins from a Philadelphia woman who said she found the rare beauties in her late father's bank deposit box, a jury found Wednesday.The verdict capped an unusual civil case that combined history, coin collecting and whether the $20 "double eagles" ever legally left the U.S. Mint. A single one sold for a record $7.59 million in 2002.
Prosecutors argued that the cherished coins never circulated when the country went off the gold standard — and were therefore stolen, with help from the woman's father, jeweler Israel Switt.

Langbord disclosed the existence of the coins to the Treasury Department in 2004 to have them authenticated. The government, noting the box was not rented until years after Switt's 1990 death, instead seized them.
"We didn't think it was a credible story," Romero said Wednesday.
Nonetheless, U.S. District Judge Legrome Davis ordered authorities to defend the forfeiture to a jury. The coins have been kept at Fort Knox, but jurors got a glimpse of them when they were secretly brought to court one day last week.

They should have sent in two to be authenticated. Not even a finder's fee to the relatives for saving the coins from being melted.