Finders Keepers

When author Virginia M. Bolen found a watch in the parking lot of the shelter in which she volunteered in August of 1997, she had no idea the trouble that would follow. In Finders Keepers, she shares her story of being arrested and charged with felony theft in a small town in Montana. This accounts narrates Bolen’s encounter with a justice system run amuck. She describes what happened to her and how she fought back over a period of years to gain vindication. She was harassed, intimidated, jailed, and pilloried in the press for a crime that law enforcement knew she didn’t commit. Through her own words, public records, correspondence, and newspaper articles, she portrays the personalities involved, including jail inmates (even the girlfriend of a serial killer), sheriff’s deputies, county attorneys, bridge players, the mother of a world champion poker player, and a Montana State Senator. Finders Keepers gives insight into the personalities and mindset of authorities, who ignoring facts and common sense, persist in yielding their power. It’s a case that’s been followed by the legal community, even outside of Montana, because of its challenge to prosecutorial immunity.