Charges for Discarding a Wallet Taken by Mistake

Attorney Answer

Yes, you could be charged. The honest risk here is not the picking up — it is the throwing away.

W. Va. Code § 61-3-13 grades larceny by the value of what was taken: $1,000 or more is grand larceny, a felony under subsection (a); less than $1,000 is petit larceny, a misdemeanor under subsection (b). A wallet and its contents would ordinarily land in the misdemeanor tier. But that section grades the offense; it does not spell out the mental state. The requirement of a taking with intent to permanently deprive the owner, and the rule that a genuine mistake about ownership at the time of the taking negates that intent, come from West Virginia common law rather than from the statute's text.

That distinction is the whole case. Your mistake-of-fact argument covers the moment you picked the wallet up believing it was your husband's. It does not cover what happened next. Once you knew it was not his, you were holding someone else's property, and throwing it out the car window is the fact a prosecutor will build around. It does not make you automatically guilty — the state still has to prove intent, and pain, medication, and a genuine mistake are real evidence. But do not assume the initial mistake ends the inquiry, because it does not.

Assume there is video. Gambling establishments record their floors, and the wallet's owner very likely reported it there.

What you can do

1. Stop talking about it — not to the establishment, not to friends, not in text messages, not on social media. Everything you say becomes evidence. 2. Do not go back to search for the wallet or send someone else to. Retracing it on your own can look like tampering. 3. Do not write out your own account of what happened. Notes you create yourself are not protected by attorney-client privilege, can be seized or subpoenaed, and can be used to impeach you if your testimony later differs. Instead preserve the records that already exist — texts, call logs, emails, receipts, photos and location history — along with the names and contact details of any witnesses, and give your account to your attorney verbally. 4. Talk to a criminal defense lawyer before you contact police or the establishment. Returning or reporting property is often the most helpful thing a person can do, but how and when it is done should be handled by counsel so it does not become a confession. 5. If an officer contacts you, say you want a lawyer and do not explain. Do not agree to "just clear it up." 6. Do not send money or make it right through a third party without counsel — that can be read as an admission. 7. Preserve anything that supports the mistake: your husband's wallet, if it looks similar, and the messages from your roommates that pulled your attention away that night.