US Dollars
Rabbi Noah Muroff returned $98,000 found in a desk from Craigslist. Reuters

A Connecticut rabbi has returned $98,000 in cash he found in a desk he bought on Craigslist.

Noah Muroff, a high school teacher at a private Jewish school in New Haven, discovered the money in a plastic bag when he and his wife dismantled their new furniture to fit in his office.

"Behind the drawers there was this plastic bag," Muroff told CNN. "We opened it up and there was $98,000 cash sitting in the bag."

"We were looking at each other and laughing. This kind of thing only happens in the movies."

Muroff went back to the desk's previous owner, a woman called Patty.

"I knew this was her money," he said. "She told me she bought the desk from Staples and put it together herself."

The father-of-four said he was never tempted to keep the loot. "We knew we had to return the money. There was no question it was the right thing to do," he said.

He discovered that Patty had put her inheritance money in the desk and had forgotten that it was there.

"She was speechless," he said.

In a thank you note to him, she said: "I do not think there are too many people in this world who would have done what you did. I will be forever grateful."