Waitress gets to keep $12K tip

A Moorhead, Minn., waitress has won her battle to keep $12,000 a customer gave her but police confiscated as suspected drug money, her attorney said Thursday.

The Clay County attorney’s office decided to return to Stacy Knutson the three wads of cash a customer left in a box on a table at the Fryn’ Pan. Her attorney, Craig Richie, said he was going to the courthouse to pick up the cash on her behalf.

“This is a woman with five kids who has been a waitress for 18 years,” Richie said.

Knutson filed a lawsuit saying that after a customer left a takeout box at her table, she followed the customer to her car, but the customer told her to keep the box. She said that after taking the box back inside and finding the large rolls of cash, she notified police. Officers told her to wait 90 days in case someone claimed the it, but authorities later decided to hold the cash longer because a drug dog detected drug residue on it.