Plotters involved with St. Louis' record $6.6 million ATM Solutions heist were themselves robbed of about 20 percent of the money, says the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. LaTunya Wright, whose former boyfriend was among four armed men who stormed the money depot in 2010, entrusted another woman to help hide at least $2 million in a storage unit. "They stole my stolen money," Wright cried out after she finished counting the cash later and came up with only $640,000 to $650,000, according to a co-defendant's plea agreement filed yesterday and a person with knowledge of the investigation. That was at least $1.3 million short.
Three guilty pleas of peripheral players in the crime, and claims about the re-stolen money, could mean a new round of charges in a case in which 14 people have been accused of the robbery, its planning or its aftermath. It also could mean recovery of more money. Only about half of the $6.6 million has been tracked down. It appears that all of the $1.3 million re-stolen portion remains missing.
An unemployed Gaston County, N.C., man robbed a bank of $1, then sat to wait for police to arrest him because he wanted access to free health care in prison, reports WCNC-TV. Robber James Verone said from jail that he pulled the robbery of a Gaston RBC branch office on June 9 because he was "sort of a logical person." He was not armed when he passed a teller a note that read, "This is a bank robbery. Please only give me one dollar."
Bank employees called police, who found Verone, 59, sitting on a sofa waiting for them. Verone said he robbed that bank because he doesn’t have medical insurance. He has a growth on his chest, two ruptured disks and a problem with his left foot. He has no money and said he believed jail was the best place he could go for medical care. He said he hopes for a three-year sentence, after which he will be eligible to collect Social Security. But his plan may have a glitch. Because he took only a dollar, he was charged with larceny, not bank robbery.
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