Reference no: EM131783483

Lost Property. Sara Simon misplaced her Galaxy cell phone in Manhattan, Kansas. Days later, Shawn Vargo contacted her, claiming to have bought the phone from someone else. He promised to mail it to Simon if she would wire $100 to him through a third party, Mark Lawrence. When Simon spoke to Lawrence about the wire transfer, she referred to the phone as hers and asked, “Are you going to send my phone to me?” Simon paid, but she did not get the phone. Instead, Lawrence took it to a Best Buy store and traded it in for credit. Charged with the theft of lost property, Lawrence claimed that he did not know Simon was the owner of the phone. Was Simon’s phone lost, mislaid, or abandoned? What is the finder’s responsibility with respect to this type of property? Can Lawrence successfully argue that he did not know the phone was Simon’s? Explain. [State of Kansas v. Lawrence, 347 P.3d 240 (Kan.App. 2015)]