Some people who need medical care but can't afford it go to the emergency room. Others just hope they'll get better. James Richard Verone robbed a bank.

Earlier this month, Verone (pictured), a 59-year-old convenience store clerk, walked into a Gastonia, N.C., bank and handed the cashier a note demanding $1 and medical attention. Then he waited calmly for police to show up.

He's now in jail and has an appointment with a doctor this week.

Verone's problems started when he lost the job he'd held for 17 years as a Coca Cola deliveryman, amid the economic downturn. He found new work driving a truck, but it didn't last. Eventually, he took a part-time position at the convenience store.

But Verone's body wasn't up to it. The bending and lifting made his back ache. He had problems with his left foot, making him limp. He also suffered from carpal tunnel syndrome and arthritis.

Then he noticed a protrusion on his chest. "The pain was beyond the tolerance that I could accept," Verone told the Gaston Gazette. "I kind of hit a brick wall with everything."

Verone knew he needed help--and he didn't want to be a burden on his sister and brothers. He applied for food stamps, but they weren't enough either.

So he hatched a plan. On June 9, he woke up, showered, ironed his shirt. He mailed a letter to the Gazette, listing the return address as the Gaston County Jail.

"When you receive this a bank robbery will have been committed by me," Verone wrote in the letter. "This robbery is being committed by me for one dollar. I am of sound mind but not so much sound body."

Then Verone hailed a cab to take him to the RBC Bank. Inside, he handed the teller his $1 robbery demand.

"I didn't have any fears," said Verone. "I told the teller that I would sit over here and wait for police."

The teller was so frightened that she had to be taken to the hospital to be checked out. Verone, meanwhile, was taken to jail, just as he'd planned it.

Because he only asked for $1, Verone was charged with larceny, not bank robbery. But he said that if his punishment isn't severe enough, he plans to tell the judge that he'll do it again. His $100,000 bond has been reduced to $2,000, but he says he doesn't plan to pay it.

In jail, Verone said he skips dinner to avoid too much contact with the other inmates. He's already seen some nurses and is scheduled to see a doctor on Friday. He said he's hoping to receive back and foot surgery, and get the protrusion on his chest treated. Then he plans to spend a few years in jail, before getting out in time to collect Social Security and move to the beach.

Verone also presented the view that if the United States had a health-care system which offered people more government support, he wouldn't have had to make the choice he did.

"If you don't have your health you don't have anything," Verone said.

The Affordable Care Act, President Obama's health-care overhaul passed by Congress last year, was designed to make it easier for Americans in situations like Verone's to get health insurance. But most of its provisions don't go into effect until 2014.

As it is, Verone said he thinks he chose the best of a bunch of bad options. "I picked jail."

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/ken-shepherd/2011/06/21/msnbc-hypes-story-man-who-robbed-bank-prison-health-care-leaves-out-fr


MSNBC Hypes Story of Man Who Robbed Bank for Prison Health Care, Leaves Out Free Health Clinics in His Backyard



On June 9, unarmed Gaston County, North Carolina man James Verone help up a bank demanding the sum of $1. After getting the cash from a teller, he patiently waited in the bank for cops to arrive.

Twelve days later, MSNBC has picked up on the story as an example of the desperate straits that unemployed, uninsured persons will go for health care.

Yet neither anchor Chris Jansing in the 10 a.m. Eastern hour nor Tamron Hall in the 2:00 p.m. hour mentioned that there are low-or-no-charge health clinics in Verone's backyard.

A little Web search yields the website for Gaston Family Health Services, Inc., a nonprofit group with seven clinics that claims to "[provide] care to more than 30,000 patients per year (1 in 11 Gaston County citizens), through more than 100,000 clinical encounters."

For example, there's the Gaston Family Health Services clinic on West Hudson Boulevard in Gastonia that promises it provides "primary care services for patients who can't afford healthcare."


Of course, Verone was also looking for free housing for three years as a way to mooch off the government until he was old enough for Social Security, reported Rad Berky of NBC affiliate WCNC this morning on the station's website:

He is hoping for a three year sentence. He would then be able to collect Social Security when he got out and said he would head for the beach.

"I've already looked at a condominium. I've spoken to a realtor on Myrtle Beach," Verone said.

Jansing omitted that fact from her report. For her part, Tamron ran a news package by Berky, who of course included Verone's dream of coasting through life on the taxpayers' dime until he's 62:

BERKY: James is hoping for a three-year sentence. He figures he'd then be able to collect Social Security when he gets out and says he'd head for the beach.


VERONE: I've already got a condominium. I've spoken to a realtor, [it's] on Myrtle Beach.

Verone is clearly delusional, a liar or both, and yet Hall introduced the story by suggesting it was just a logical option one might take, albeit extreme, when unemployed and without health insurance:

So just how much is health care worth to you? One desperate North Carolina man claims it is worth a stay in jail.

I hope he gets raped and contracts AIDS.

I hope he dies a slow and painful death.

Who the hell cares about "right" or "wrong"? Whatever gets him the health care he needs, when he's got no other way. That he did it by stealing $1 from a bank and waiting for the cops to arrive is just amusing.

I just don't like/get the idea of making him into some kind of modern folk hero. We have a rule of law that protects people and property. Most people benefit from that law without realizing it. When people violate that law they should be dealt with appropriately. If he threatened the life of a bank teller, for money or indirectly for goods and services, then he's no hero in my book.

1) He didn't threaten anybody's life. It doesn't sound like he even claimed to have a weapon.
2) Nobody's calling him a hero. (He'd be a hero if it were for someone else, like in that movie John Q.) He's just doing what needed to be done.

Who cares how scared the clerk was? I facepalmed when I read that she had to be taken to the hospital or what the **** ever. Give me a break. An old man walked into the bank and handed you a note asking for a dollar bill, then he went and sat down. SUCH EMOTIONAL DISTRESS.

Who cares how scared the clerk was? I facepalmed when I read that she had to be taken to the hospital or what the **** ever. Give me a break. An old man walked into the bank and handed you a note asking for a dollar bill, then he went and sat down. SUCH EMOTIONAL DISTRESS.

See, old man holding up a bank for $1 so he can go to jail? that's just smart, he's no hero. Now...Neal freakin' Caffrey is my criminal hero. Although Mozzie stepped up a bit after the heist he pulled last season.

why are you not living in a survival shelter in canada Elmo?

He could have done what needed to be done by going to one of the many free clinics in his area.