U.S. man files court documents to keep $150,000 he found in yard

A U.S. man is hoping the playground rule of finders keepers will work in his favour after finding $150,000 cash in his garden.

Wayne Sabaj, 49, found the money when going to his garden to pick vegetables for dinner at the end of August, but scared someone may be after him, he turned the money into the police.

"It wasn't my money," he told WGN-TV after the find. "What am I going to do? I don't know where it came from. With my luck it came from a bank robbery, and I'd be charged with bank robbery."

The police have been holding the money for safekeeping, but have not associated it with any crime and no one has come forward to claim it. So Sabaj filed court documents on Tuesday calling dibs.

"Assuming nobody claims the money, there will be another order entered directing the clerk to release the money to him," says Sabaj's attorney Robert Burke to WBBM Newsradio in Illinois.

However, even if the police find no leads, the currently unemployed carpenter can't get the money right away.

"That's the only drawback. He's going to have to wait a year," says Burke to WBBM. "I think he'll be around a year from now. He's a fairly young man."