A waitress trying to make ends meet for her family of seven had her dream come true dashed by police when they seized an astronomical tip a customer had left behind.

Officers in Moorhead, Minn., believe that the $12,000 tip left for the waitress at the Moorhead Fryn’ Pan was not a generous gesture but rather cash that was part of a drug deal, according to the Forum of Fargo-Moorhead. The waitress had initially contacted police about the money to do “the right thing,” even though she said she “desperately needed the money” for herself, her husband, and their five children.

The Forum reports that the waitress discovered the cash when she noticed a take-out box from another restaurant at a table she had been waiting on. She attempted to return the box to the woman that had been seated at the table, but was told by her to keep it. Upon returning inside, the waitress opened the box and discovered it contained rubber-banded rolls of money.

Initially, police told the woman that the money would be returned to her if nobody had claimed it within 60 days. That deadline came and went, and after 90 days she was told by police that they were keeping it as part of a drug investigation, and she received a $1,000 reward instead.

Moorhead police are claiming that the money had a “strong odor of marijuana,” which allowed them to seize it under state law. The waitress and her co-workers deny that the money had any sort of drug odor.

Now the waitress has filed a lawsuit to get back her cash.

“The thing that’s sad about it is here’s somebody who truly needs this gift… and now the government is getting in the way of it,” said attorney Craig Richie, who is representing the waitress in the lawsuit.

Richie said that the law is being “misapplied” in this case, and that there was no evidence that the cash was involved in a drug deal. Instead, he thinks it was an “anonymous donation” from the waitress’ church, where members are aware of her family’s dire financial situation.

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