peripatetic

You're venting unfounded frustrations and twisting information. He didn't "accept something stolen," he may have found something that was stolen. The law goes after people who deal in stolen merchandise because those people enable thieves to make their enterprise profitable. The poster hasn't indicated that he's planning on doing this at all, and he didn't ask, "where's the nearest fence." The law does not penalize a person for finding stolen merchandise if they have no idea that it's stolen; but what it does require is that if a person suspects something is stolen, they attempt to return it to its rightful owner. Seems that's what the poster's doing. Seems like the alternative would have been for him to just leave the bike for someone else who might find it and maybe decide to try and sell it or its parts for a quick buck; in this case, if you're someone who sees something, and you know that you'll make the effort to return it, you're probably being as ethical as you can be. There wasn't even a seller to try and pin it on in this case. It's basically a rule in the big city: if you leave something out on the street, you're giving up your claim. We're talking context in this case. Before you decide a person's guilty, make sure you consider where he's at, and what's considered reasonable behavior in this situation. His was reasonable.