The obligatory Man Robs Bank for Healthcare story

ABC News will draw all manner of conclusions from this one, but they might differ from yours. Richard Verone, suffering from numerous medical ailments and without a job, concocted an unusual way to obtain free health care. He robbed a bank.

A 59-year-old man has been jailed in Gastonia, N.C., on charges of larceny after allegedly robbing an RBC Bank for $1 so he could get health care in prison. Richard James Verone handed a female teller a note demanding the money and claiming that he had a gun, according to the police report.

He then sat down and waited for police to arrive. “… I say, ‘I’ll be sitting right over here, on the chair, waiting for the police,’” Verone told reporters, recalling the June 9 robbery in an interview from Gaston County Jail.

Verone robbed the bank of one dollar. When police arrested him he was unarmed. He claimed he chose the small amount of funds to prove that his needs were “medical, not financial.” (I thought the two were fairly well entwined?)

Winning comment from the suspect:

“I’m sort of a logical person and that was my logic, what I came up with,” Verone told reporters. “If it is called manipulation, then out of necessity because I need medical care, then I guess I am manipulating the courts to get medical care.”

Sadly, his plan failed in one key regard. Due the lack of weapons and the small amount of cash, he was charged with larceny rather than some major, felony bank robbery rap. Because of that, he’ll only get up to 12 months in the local jail, not a long stretch in federal prison, so his medical options will likely not be the same.

Creative thinking, though. Only in America.

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