Connecticut rabbi finds $98,000 in desk bought on Craigslist, returns cash to seller

Connecticut Rabbi Noah Muroff bought a desk for less than $200 on Craigslist and found $98,000 in cash hidden behind its drawers, which he promptly returned.

Muroff said when he and his wife, Esther, brought the desk home they discovered it wouldn't fit through the door of their office, so they took it apart.

"Behind the drawers there is this plastic bag, like a shopping," Muroff told a local TV station. "In the bag, I could already see through the bag, it looks like a one hundred dollar bill.

"We open it up and it's full of cash. And we counted up and there's $98,000 cash sitting in the bag," he continued.

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Muroff's wife called the desk's former owner, identified only as Patty, who said she had hidden her inheritance behind the drawers long ago and forgot about the hiding place.

"I knew this was her money," Muroff said. "She told me she bought the desk from Staples and put it together herself."

Patty was speechless when she received the call from the rabbi's wife.

"I do not think there are too many people in this world that would have done what you did by calling me," Patty wrote in a thank-you note to Muroff obtained by CNN.

The couple took their four children with them to return the money to its owner and said they hoped their good deed would send "the message of honesty and integrity."