New York Consolidated Laws, State Finance Law - STF § 128. Disposition of unclaimed personal property

1. Any personal property, and any interest or increments accruing thereon, belonging or credited to a person in any institution under the jurisdiction of the office of children and family services, the department of health, the department of mental hygiene, the executive department, or the department of corrections and community supervision who shall have been discharged from such institution or who shall have died or escaped before discharge or before termination of sentence, which is in the custody of the proper officer of such institution, shall, if unclaimed by such discharged or escaped person or by the legal representative of such deceased person for a period of six months after the discharge, decease or escape of such person, be fully inventoried and a copy of such inventory shall be filed with the commissioner of such department having jurisdiction over such institution and with the state comptroller.

2. Any such personal property consisting of money or intangible property shall be paid or delivered forthwith, by such officer, to the state comptroller pursuant to the provisions of section thirteen hundred four of the abandoned property law.

3. Such commissioner shall cause any such property consisting of tangible personal property, other than money, except such property as such commissioner may determine to be valueless or of such little value that the probable proceeds of a sale thereof would be less than the cost of such sale, which property may be ordered destroyed by such commissioner, to be sold at public or private sale as determined by such commissioner, and the proceeds from such sale, less the expenses of such sale, including the costs of any advertising, shall be paid to the state comptroller pursuant to the provisions of section thirteen hundred four of the abandoned property law.