$18,010 Left at LAX Goes to Woman Who Found It

A former airline worker who found $18,010 next to a boarding gate at Los Angeles International Airport and turned it over to authorities has been awarded the money because no one claimed it, officials said Monday.

But there was no ceremony for the return of the suitcase full of cash to Julie Sueoka. In fact, she’ll receive the money by check, not from the currency that authorities speculate was abandoned by nervous drug dealers.

Sueoka, 26, now a Salt Lake City law student, picked up the abandoned suitcase July 11 at a boarding gate used earlier by passengers traveling from Chicago.

Officials were astonished that anybody who found cash at LAX would turn it in.

“I’ve never had a case of found money before. And I’ve been here nine years,” said Deputy City Atty. Flora Trostler of the office’s Airports Division.

The cash was rolled in rubber bands and hidden inside socks buried in clothing in the suitcase, Trostler said. The suitcase was left at a boarding area used by American Trans Air.

Airport officials kept the cash for 90 days to give the suitcase owner time to claim it. Last month, they advertised the suitcase’s recovery in legal notices published in The Times.

At the time the money was found, Sueoka was a part-time gate attendant for Northwest Airlines. She was walking past the gate with a co-worker when she noticed the bag. The pair turned it over to Airport Police.

The federal Drug Enforcement Administration took possession of the cash and agents spent several weeks trying unsuccessfully to link it to drug dealers, according to Trostler.

In the meantime, Sueoka quit her airline job to enroll in law school. When her co-worker decided not to claim any of the money, Sueoka hired a lawyer to get it back from the DEA.

Attorney Eric Honig, a drug-enforcement forfeiture specialist, convinced federal officials that the cash should be considered abandoned because it could not be tied to any drug dealer.

“My theory is probably the DEA or some law enforcement agency was watching them carry the bag to the plane and they got nervous during the flight and decided to drop it rather than walk out with it,” Honig said.

Why didn’t Sueoka simply walk out with the money herself?

Honig said Monday that she wanted to become a lawyer and felt “one of the things you have to do is obey the law.”

According to Honig, an attorney for Northwest Airlines briefly suggested that the air carrier had rights to the money.

But a Northwest spokesman denied that was the case.

“In no way did Northwest put in a claim for that money,” Doug Killian said. “The station director even complimented her for going back to school.”

Sueoka said Monday she plans to spend the money on law school tuition.