For 20 years, Curtis Smith Sr. carried a rare $1,000 bill in his pocket with no intention of spending it.
"Nobody ever knew I had it," Smith explained. "I thought of it as a novelty."
Smith, 71, expected to keep the note safely tucked in his pants until the day he died.
Instead, he kept it in his pants until the day in April that Pine Lawn police took it away from him.
The bill might be back in those pants today, except that Mayor Adrian Wright also fancied it as a novelty.
So it sits in limbo in the mayor's safe at City Hall.
"They took my money and gave me a check instead," complained Smith, a retired truck driver from Jennings. "If you take a personal item from someone, you should give it back."
St. Louis County police and prosecutors looked into the circumstances and decided that Pine Lawn officials broke no laws, even though the note has a collector's value of more than the amount returned to Smith.
But outside officials did frown on Pine Lawn police for their actions.
"It's a bad idea for a city official or politician to have access to evidence," said Don Schneider, spokesman for the St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Robert McCulloch. "It creates the appearance of impropriety. We don't advocate doing business that way."
The story began 20 years ago, when Smith asked a friend who worked at a bank to call him if she ever came across a $1,000 note. Smith traded in other cash when she found one.
The government had printed its last $1,000 bill in 1934 and took the denomination out of circulation in 1969 after technology replaced paper notes for transfers of large sums.
Today, collectors will pay from $1,300 to $3,500 for the rare currency, with its portrait of President Grover Cleveland, depending on the condition, experts said.
Smith's note was among the last printed, and part of a large batch released through the Chicago Federal Reserve Bank. Those factors reduce its value as a collectible.
Smith said he kept it rolled under a rubber band with several $100 bills and a few $2 bills. The years wore on the bills, which he said were faded, moldy and sticking together.
A Pine Lawn officer found the cash when he arrested Smith on suspicion of drunken driving April 28.
Smith said he had been asleep in his truck about 2 a.m., parked on a lot he owns in the 6200 block of Natural Bridge Road, when Cpl. Michael Waisner found him.
Smith admitted he had a few drinks that night but said he planned to sleep it off before driving home.
Smith failed several field sobriety tests, according to the police report. So Waisner arrested him.
Officers reported finding more than a dozen marijuana cigarettes in Smith's truck. They booked him on suspicion of possession of a controlled substance, driving under the influence, carrying an open container of alcohol in a vehicle and no insurance.
Back at the police station, Mayor Wright observed as police counted the money, according to the official report.
"Wright stated that he would like to purchase the previously mentioned $1,000 bill as a novelty item, as few people have ever had the opportunity to see a bill in that denomination," the report said.
Wright went to the St. Louis Community Credit Union and withdrew 10 $100 bills, the report explained. Police switched the money and deposited it in an account for seized drug assets.
In September, St. Louis County prosecutors refused to charge Smith with selling drugs and ordered Pine Lawn police to return his money. The city issued Smith a check for $3,231 to cover the $1,000 bill plus his other cash.
Smith, who is fighting the traffic charges, said he called and visited Pine Lawn police several times to ask for his rare bill, but officials refused to return it.
Wright did not return a reporter's calls.
When contacted by a reporter, Pine Lawn City Attorney Mark Zoole said the bill never left City Hall and would be returned to Smith if he asks - and as long as it is not still considered evidence in a criminal case.
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