Man accused of robbing Utah bank of $1, demanding to go to federal prison

[Stevicus]

Man accused of robbing Utah bank of $1, demanding to go to federal prison

Utah police have arrested a bank robbery suspect accused of demanding just $1 from employees and refusing to leave afterward, instead insisting he'd wait for authorities to arrive.

www.yahoo.com

Utah police have arrested a bank robbery suspect accused of demanding just $1 from employees and refusing to leave afterward, instead insisting he'd wait for authorities to arrive.

The suspect, 65-year-old Donald Santacroce, allegedly entered a Wells Fargo Bank near 300 South Main Street in Salt Lake City on Monday morning and presented a note to the bank tellers that read: “Please pardon me for doing this but this is a robbery. Please give me $1.00 Thank you.”

The employees complied and asked Santacroce to leave, but he refused.

In a bizarre twist, he said they should call the police.

He then sat down in the bank’s lobby and waited for their arrival.

As he waited, Santacroce appeared to complain about how long it was taking for officers to arrive at the scene.

“Donald made a statement to the victims that they are lucky [he] didn’t have a gun because it was taking the police so long to get there,” the arrest affidavit said.

After he made that statement, the bank branch manager ushered the employees into the backroom for their safety and locked the doors. No one was injured in the incident.

When officers arrived, Santacroce was arrested.

He gave the $1 bill to the officers and said he entered the bank with the intent to rob it.

He explained he committed the bank robbery, a federal crime, because he “wanted to get arrested and go to federal prison.”

Santacroce said that if he gets out of jail, he'd rob another bank, and ask for more money until he was sent to federal prison.

It's not clear why he was so adamant on going to federal prison.

He was booked into Salt Lake County Metro Jail around 6:15 p.m. on a felony robbery charge.

He is no longer in custody as of Wednesday. It's not immediately clear if he has a lawyer.

Santacroce had been arrested last week by Utah Highway Patrol in Iron County for a DUI investigation and careless driving, found to be using a license that was suspended out of Missouri, NBC affiliate KSL of Salt Lake City reported.

This is odd. Robbing a bank for $1 just to go to prison. Someone commented that he can get three hots and a cot in prison, as opposed to being on the streets, homeless and hungry.

 

[ChristineM]

... Someone commented that he can get three hots and a cot in prison, as opposed to being on the streets, homeless and hungry.

That sounds like the answer to me. Better in a warm, comfortable (ish) prison with a roof over your head than living on the streets.

 

[Brickjectivity]

Man accused of robbing Utah bank of $1, demanding to go to federal prison

Utah police have arrested a bank robbery suspect accused of demanding just $1 from employees and refusing to leave afterward, instead insisting he'd wait for authorities to arrive.

www.yahoo.com

This is odd. Robbing a bank for $1 just to go to prison. Someone commented that he can get three hots and a cot in prison, as opposed to being on the streets, homeless and hungry.

Hopefully he gets a clever judge that can figure out a way to help him, but he's not making it easy. He's probably going to find out that prison isn't fun.

 

[Father Heathen]

Hopefully he gets a clever judge that can figure out a way to help him, but he's not making it easy. He's probably going to find out that prison isn't fun.

I would rather contend with the cold and hunger than with the brutality that happens within prison walls.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

That sounds like the answer to me. Better in a warm, comfortable (ish) prison with a roof over your head than living on the streets.

American prisons are atrocious. They're frequently over crowded, full of violence, the meals and often heavy in carbs and starches and very poor quality, they come with a heightened risk of MRSA, and sometimes left open for miserably nasty deaths like cooking to death in super hot Texas prisons or contracting Valley Fever (a very nasty and potentially fatal fungal infection) breathing the dusty air in Central Valley California prisons.
The streets you can at least a place to hide and sleep. In prison you learn to sleep with one eye open.
Although, the general consensus I've heard among former inmates is prison is WAY better than jail.

 

[ChristineM]

American prisons are atrocious. They're frequently over crowded, full of violence, the meals and often heavy in carbs and starches and very poor quality, they come with a heightened risk of MRSA, and sometimes left open for miserably nasty deaths like cooking to death in super hot Texas prisons or contracting Valley Fever (a very nasty and potentially fatal fungal infection) breathing the dusty air in Central Valley California prisons.
The streets you can at least a place to hide and sleep. In prison you learn to sleep with one eye open.
Although, the general consensus I've heard among former inmates is prison is WAY better than jail.

So the guy must be extremely desperate then.

 

[Revoltingest]

I would rather tend with the cold and hunger than with the brutality that happens within prison walls.

It all depends where they send you.
One acquaintance did around a year in the fed slammer
for income tax evasion, & said it was OK. He got into
great physical shape.
Still....he'd have preferred being on the outside.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

So the guy must be extremely desperate then.

It unfortunately does sometimes happen.

 

[ChristineM]

It unfortunately does sometimes happen.

Yes.

 

[JustGeorge]

I would rather contend with the cold and hunger than with the brutality that happens within prison walls.

I guess that depends on where... When the temps drop under zero for days at a time, I'm not sure I wouldn't want to go to jail to escape it myself...

 

[Shaul]

What an amateur. The heads of the Silicon Valley Bank could show him how to take millions. But with him it was a matter of principle while with them it was a matter of principal.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Yes.

Those who scream this is a Christian nation, I almost wish their god was real just to see the look on their faces when he judges them over the state of America, including that some found it preferable to go to jail or prison to have basic needs met. Jesus will repeat this story and other similar stories to them, and turn so furious that even if he's the darkest black man ever his face is gonna glow red like metal and ignite those fiery eyes of that Righteous Fury and Judgement Jesus John wrote about at the end of the Bible.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

What an amateur. The heads of the Silicon Valley Bank could show him how to take millions. But with him it was a matter of principle while with them it was a matter of principal.

Yeah, I don't think getting money was actually the plan for him. We don't know exactly what, but the reported comments suggest he's not driven by severe mental illness so he might see prison as a way of getting something he needs that he's currently not getting. But we don't even know that. People who rob a bank for such reasons tend to be upfront about their motives. But "I'm robbing your bank, please give me a dollar" and then waiting around well demonstrate getting money wasn't his motive. But he did rob a bank, so off he goes. But for all we know it could be a movie like thing and he wants in prison to kill someone.
It is strange.

 

[Valjean]

So the guy must be extremely desperate then.

Well, this is America, land of small government and few social(ist!) programs, where we're free to sink or swim; work or die in the gutter.