Dear madam,
Rabbit meat from wild hunt used to be put away in the cellar for a couple of days to 'noble'. It actually meant that some decay took place over a couple of days on the outside of the meat to make it more tasty. The trick, that made it safe, is that the outer layer including the bacteria was very well heated afterwards, killing those bacteria. The other part of the trick is that this meat was intact. Intact muscle has quite a resistance against bacteria to invade; so the inner layers remain clean.
Therefore, you cannot do this with chopped meat; chopped meat has no structure left and bacteria are already on the inside when you buy it. So, keep it cool. On the other hand: all sailors who sail without a fridge on board, will have -even chopped meat- uncooled for some hours and bake and eat it without any problem.
I agree with my colleque, that when in doubt leave it out, but in your case doubt can be taken away.