Samaritan gives back
lost check for $30,000

A store errand turns into a mission
to find the rightful owners

At first, Joshua Liu thought it was a prank.

Why else would a $30,000 signed check, made out to no one, be lying face up and in plain view at the entrance of a well-frequented liquor store?

Curious, Liu picked up the check and looked around, half expecting a car full of teens to be laughing at him.

But the 25-year-old soon realized the check was legitimate, and that meant someone was missing it. He turned back toward the store, thinking he would just give the check to a cashier at Michael's Liquor on Kailua Road.

He soon decided against that, thinking it might be a good time to spread a little Christmas cheer if he tried to track the check's owner by himself.

Liu had gone into the liquor store on Thursday morning about 9:30 a.m. to get his wife a carton of guava juice when he found the check.

The check's owner and her husband, both Honolulu residents, confirmed Liu's story when contacted by the Star-Bulletin but asked that their names not be disclosed.

The check was for a relative, but the couple also asked that the details be kept private.

Liu and the couple arranged to meet at the Longs Drug Store in Kailua about 10:45 a.m. They brought along a box of chocolate chip cookies for Liu as a small token of their appreciation.

Liu gave the check to the owner's beaming husband, who thanked Liu for his honesty.

"He was super-happy," Liu said, "that someone like me found it."

Liu said he was tickled with the couple's cookies, too. "I wasn't really expecting anything," he added.

At a Christmas party that evening, Liu said he told the story "several times" to his friends and relatives. His brother, a citizen soldier set to go to Iraq in the new year, told him he had done the right thing. But some of his friends joked that they would have tried to cash the check.

For Liu the most important reward was the smiles of relief on the couple's faces after their check was returned. And regardless of the season -- Christmas spirit or no -- Liu says he would have done the same thing.

"It's my good deed for the year," he added with a laugh.