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In These Troubling Times

Man Robs Bank To Receive Free Healthcare In Jail

by Erin Podolak | 2:45 pm, June 22nd, 2011

James Richard Verone, a Gastonia, NC resident and former Coca-Cola truck driver has been charged with larceny from a person for robbing a local RBC Bank of $1. Verone committed the robbery to receive free healthcare while incarcerated because he has no benefits and can not take on the financial cost of his own care.

The charge is larceny from a person because Verone only took $1. The charge carries reduced jail time, but like bank robbery, the crime is still a felony. After passing the bank teller a note demanding $1 and healthcare, Verone sat quietly in the bank and waited for police to arrive. He was arrested and taken to the county jail, where his $100,000 bond has since been reduced to $2,000. He doesn’t intend to pay it, he is purposefully staying in jail.

Verone intends to represent himself in court, and he hopes that he will be convicted of the felony so that he can receive care for a number of physical afflictions including back pain, pain in his left foot, arthritis, Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, and a protrusion on his chest (the cause of which is unknown).

After 17 years making deliveries for Coca-Cola, Verone was let go three years ago. The now 59-year-old found subsequent jobs driving a truck for another company and then working as a convenience store clerk, but neither job lasted very long. Verone began living off his savings, which didn’t get him very far. He tried to file for disability and social security, but he didn’t qualify. He was able to get food stamps, but the extra money wasn’t enough to come close to making up for the cost of his needed medical care.

Verone considered homeless shelters or a handout from a charitable organization. But then he struck on another idea: become a criminal. A stint in jail comes with food, shelter, and medical attention. But what kind of crime would a man who has never been in trouble with the law in his life commit? Not wanting to harm others with his crime, Verone came to the conclusion that he should rob a bank for $1.

Since being arrested, Verone has seen several nurses and had an appointment with a doctor. He was hoping to receive back and foot surgery and a diagnosis and treatment for the protrusion on his chest. However, these procedures would come at public expense, because the jails are funded by taxpayer money.

If the sentence Verone receives for the lesser larceny from a person charge is not long enough to cover the number of procedures he needs, Verone has said he will consider becoming a repeat offender.

(Boing Boing via The Gaston Gazette)

  • Rty

    something is wrong with our system

  • http://www.facebook.com/amedeus8 Nick Gotshall

    Shit, he’s got my support. The man clearly WANTS to work, so unless some huge bit of information is being left out, here, I can’t think of a single way he’d be in the wrong.

  • Anonymous

    Simple.  The DA should decline to prosecute.

  • Califman831

    lets flood the banks with poor and disabled.  The system will be forced todeal with them instead of waiting for them to simply die.

  • Anonymous

    tinyurl.com/2df4ccp

  • Asreal

    Poor guy!

    Makes you wonder why some Americans are against Obama’s national health service…

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_Z4CJFSWSF6NJQ2QO56FEBHKHJM K

    If he declines to prosecute the guy will commit a larger crime.

  • http://twitter.com/Gauldar Rob

    It wasn’t any better before Obama, try finding another person to blame.

  • http://twitter.com/Gauldar Rob

    It wasn’t any better before Obama, try finding another person to blame.

  • http://www.facebook.com/amedeus8 Nick Gotshall

    I don’t think he’s blaming Obama. Sounds more like he’s blaming people who blame Obama.

  • Asreal

    Exactly :)

  • Facts

    There
    was a free clinic a few miles away from the bank.  This guy is just a nut case – no real story
    here.  

  • http://twitter.com/Gauldar Rob

    Ahh, my mistake.

  • http://twitter.com/realee realee

    I know as someone who works with a free clinic that, as great as they are, those clinics are over run and underfunded. The one I work with can’t take on any new clients and the services they can provide can be limited. Unless it had amazing resources… chances are that clinic wouldn’t have been able to help him with everything if anything. Though hard to say without knowing more.

  • Jared Warren

    Once you have been found guilty of a charge of harming others, then you should be charged for the services of keeping you in protective custody, including food, shelter and medical care. In addition, you should be required to perform hard labor until you have paid off the debt you incurred.

    The same goes for receiving a prison sentence. However, if there is a high standard of guilt, and the harm you caused is serious, there should be no obligation to provide you with adequate food, shelter or medical care. Those who harm others should receive only the minimum food, shelter and medical care they need to perform hard labor, and for as long as is deemed a fair and reasonable part of the punishment.

  • Jared Warren

    WANTING to work is no excuse. If it was, why didn’t we just let unionized tellers/farmhands/accountants (etc) keep all their jobs? Because other countries would take advantage of the efficiency of more productive processes, leading much of our investment to flow to those countries, and making us a lot poorer as a result. Thus, many of us would be unable to afford decent medical care.

    ADAPTING to the competitive market is the only real virtue of the needy. If you don’t want to adapt to what is most productive, clearly you don’t want to work hard enough. I probably sound like an asshole saying this, but this man spent 17 years as a truck driver. If we no longer need as many manual positions, he should have foreseen that and improved his skillset a long time ago. If he was somehow unable to do so, well, charity does not come from the barrel of a policeman’s gun. Let’s not use the government to steal other people’s productive earnings for the purpose of giving to other people who are not as productive. Let’s encourage those people to be productive by eliminating safety nets, which encourages other people to be charitable (as it did in the 19th century).

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Kenny-Hickerson/100001577581004 Kenny Hickerson

    Its sad I know I even thought of it I need major surgery !

  • http://twitter.com/JordanWinkler1 Jordan Winkler

    You’re right. You sound like an ass. You don’t seem to be aware of the fact that their are many idiots out there. It is not their fault and it is morally bankrupt to consider it so. Sure there were many ways this man could have received help without going to jail but if this system worked as well as other countries it would not be necessary to consider bank robbery.

    Check the three currencies that are above ours. Two have universal healthcare. The other is a union of several countries in europe.

    We fail as a country because of widespread callous and ignorance not because we don’t cut enough corners.

  • http://twitter.com/JordanWinkler1 Jordan Winkler

    You’re right. You sound like an ass. You don’t seem to be aware of the fact that their are many idiots out there. It is not their fault and it is morally bankrupt to consider it so. Sure there were many ways this man could have received help without going to jail but if this system worked as well as other countries it would not be necessary to consider bank robbery.

    Check the three currencies that are above ours. Two have universal healthcare. The other is a union of several countries in europe.

    We fail as a country because of widespread callous and ignorance not because we don’t cut enough corners.


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