A Florida Man accused of stealing $1450 that was being counted by an Arby’s cashier told police that the money “was like calling out to me” before he grabbed the bills and bolted from the restaurant.

Cops charge that Christopher Merrick yesterday entered a closed Arby’s in Tarpon Springs around 9:20 AM as a female worker was “counting the cash for her cash drawer.”

When the employee walked away from the counter, Merrick, 30, allegedly grabbed the cash and raced out of the store--with the Arby’s employee on his heels. Merrick, pictured at right, ran to a neighboring McDonald’s, “where he hid in the women’s bathroom.”

Merrick was subsequently arrested by Tarpon Springs Police Department officers who found the stolen cash “in the trash can of the stall where the defendant came out from.”

Merrick reportedly confessed to the theft, saying, “I saw the money on the counter and it was like calling out to me.” Merrick, cops reported, said that he knew he had done “something wrong and put the money in the trash can" at Arby's (seen below).

Charged with grand theft, a felony, Merrick is locked up in lieu of $2000 bond. He was released from the Pinellas County jail on May 10 upon completion of a sentence for felony battery. Merrick’s rap sheet also includes convictions for theft, burglary, narcotics possession, and violating probation.