Finders, keepers? La Crosse woman finds $530, arrested for not returning it

Caught on video picking up
money 3 minutes after dropped

With all that’s happening in relation to police the last week, a simple matter in La Crosse could have gotten a bit out of hand. 

Around 7:30 p.m. Saturday, a man leaving the Mileage Gas Station on Cass St. in La Crosse, dropped his rent money as he got into his car.

Realizing it a short time later, he returned to the station to ask if anyone had returned the $530 in cash that was in an envelope.

The attendant there had not, but said they could check out surveillance video. Sure enough, at 7:23 p.m., video shows the money fall onto the ground as they’re leaving. Three minutes later a woman picks it up.

Police were called to help recover the money. The attendant knew the woman, Marcades Coppage, and sent her a Facebook message explaining the situation.

Coppage replied shortly after, she was not going to return the envelope, stating she found it, and did not steal it, according to the police report.

So, police headed to the 26-year-old woman’s home on Main Street. As they arrived, they could hear a lot of commotion coming from within, including a woman yell, “They here because I jacked that money.”

Police informed those inside they were only there to talk to Coppage and that nobody else was in trouble.

They were let into the house. Upon trying to explain the situation to Coppage, she kept interrupting and was very argumentative. 

Eventually, she told police she found the money, but gave it away. Police came back with, “You did not give the money away.”

She said she did, and began walking away from police, toward the other end of the house.

Officers grabbed her, and Coppage tried to get free. Other people in the house were yelling and getting upset.

As Coppage was resisting, she yelled, “I’m not going to jail. The money is in my pocket. I will give it to you all.” 

She, however, still resisted the officers’ attempts to get her under control, and began yelling, “if I were a white person they wouldn’t even lock them up.”

As police arrested her, she told them the money wasn’t in her pocket, but in her bra. 

At the jail, police did, in fact, find the money there, but only $350 of the $530.

Coppage was arrested for resisting/obstructing an officer, theft from a business setting and also had a probation violation.

Bond for her release, ironically, set at $500.

When police returned the envelope to, what was a pair of roommates, a third roommate had said he also put his rent money ($120) in the envelope.

So, police are unsure if the amount was $530 or $650. Regardless, all that was returned was $350.