Section 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
  department of social services, the department of health, the  department
  of  mental  hygiene,  the  executive  department,  or  the department of
  correctional  services  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.