Legal Question in Landlord & Tenant Law in Illinois

Heck of a situation for anybody, really. Illinois allows "landlords" to retain and/or dispose of property "abandoned" by their "renters" without having to give notice to the likely owner. They key is what makes something "abandoned" or not usually has to do with value and the circumstances under which they were left. The reasoning is that people generally don't intend to leave behind things of value; those things would be considered "lost" and not "abandoned", because whether it's one or the other is taken from the point of view of the property owner, not the person who finds it. So there are other signs that accompany value like how much was left (a mess more likely means abandon vs. a few things all in one place more likely lost), where it was left (middle of a room more likely abandoned or in the back of a drawer more likely lost), etc. The ringer here is that the person was convicted of theft and therefore may intentionally be avoiding contacting you or may be in jail. You don't say, so some of the circumstances are unknown. But lapse of time not contacting someone for lost property can also help establish abandonment. So first you must decide if the property was "lost" or truly "abandoned". If you decide the property was "lost" and not "abandoned", Illinois law does require a rather elaborate procedure including the filing of an affidavit in court, advertising the property (typically as "lost and found"), etc., but only if the property appears to have value of more than $100.00. So if there's anything that appears to be that valuable, you may just want to box it up and hold on to it for a while, even if you decide it was abandoned, and if the person hasn't even asked about it in 6 months or so (people are allowed to write from jail....) or nobody else comes by asking about it, lapse of time can establish abandonment and you should be free to deal with it. Unfortunately, with relatively few facts and so many alternatives, this is only to give you some general guidance and can not be a guaranteed answer. If you still have concerns you may just want to ask at your local police station.