Gaston County Jail

 

James Verone handed a bank teller a note demanding money and claimed he had a gun.

With little money to his name and many medical problems, including a growth on his chest, two ruptured disks and an unidentified problem with his left foot, he said the "robbery" was his last resort.

"The pain was beyond the tolerance that I could accept," he told the Gaston Gazette. "I kind of hit a brick wall with everything."

He calculated that a non-violent crime like the bank hold-up would land him in jail, and even enable him to collect Social Security benefits upon his release.
 
"I'm sort of a logical person and that was my logic, what I came up with," he said.
 
On the day he committed the felony, Verone mailed a letter to the Gaston Gazette explaining his logic.
 
"When you receive this a bank robbery will have been committed by me. This robbery is being committed by me for one dollar," he wrote. "I am of sound mind but not so much sound body."