65-year-old US man 'robs' bank of $1 for imprisonment

Los Angeles, March 9

The Salt Lake City Police Department has confirmed that officers arrested a 65-year-old man accused of robbing a bank in the US city, who reportedly demanded $1 from employees earlier this week "in an attempt to be sent to a prison".

The man, identified as Donald Santacroce, on Monday entered a bank near 300 South Main Street in Salt Lake City, the capital and most populous city of the western US state of Utah, Xinhua news agency reported, citing the Salt Lake City Police Department.

The suspect demanded money from bank employees and refused to leave the bank. He was booked into the Salt Lake County Metro Jail on one count of robbery, said the department in a news release.

Officials didn't say how much Santacroce had demanded from bank tellers in the news release.

Santacroce gave a teller a note that stated, "Please pardon me for doing this but this is a robbery. Please give me $1. Thank you", reported a local news outlet, KSL-TV, citing a police booking affidavit.

The teller gave Santacroce a dollar and then asked him to leave. Santacroce instead told the teller to call police, the report added.

"Donald said he had done this because he wanted to get arrested and go to federal prison. Donald stated that if he gets out of jail, he will rob another bank and ask for more money next time trying to get the desired result of going to federal prison," the arrest report states, according to the report.

The Salt Lake City Police Department did not say what the suspect's motive may have been in the news release.

This is not the first $1 bank robbery in the country. James Verone, an unemployed, uninsured 59-year-old man, robbed a bank in North Carolina of $1 in 2011 to get health care in prison.

In another similar case, a 50-year-old homeless man reportedly robbed a bank in Oregon for $1, then waiting for police to arrest him so that he would get medical attention in 2013.