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Ex-convict says he got himself arrested to get prison health care
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| Parent(s) |
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| Contributor | Craverguy |
| Last Edited | Craverguy Dec 10, 2012 09:50pm |
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| Category | News |
| Author | Dan Herbeck |
| Media | Newspaper - Buffalo News |
| News Date | Sunday, December 9, 2012 07:50:00 PM UTC0:0 |
| Description | On the night of Nov. 26, a man walked into a Wegmans store on Alberta Drive in Amherst, where he stepped up to a counter and began stuffing shoelaces, a pair of sandals, a small stuffed animal and other miscellaneous items worth a total of $23 into a shopping basket.
Making sure the cashier and other people in the store saw him, the man then walked out of the store without paying. A few minutes later, Amherst police arrested him on a shoplifting charge.
The man was Frank J. Morrocco, an Amherst resident who was convicted of felony drug conspiracy charges in the 1990s and released from federal prison last December after serving 20 years. He suffers from a rare form of leukemia.
Morrocco said he intentionally got himself arrested in hopes that a federal judge would send him to prison for a violation of supervised release.
That way, Morrocco said, he would be able to get “prison health care that is very good” – health care that he says he cannot afford as a free man.
“It was an act of desperation. I went into that store and took things I didn’t need, and I made sure a lot of people saw me,” the 56-year-old Morrocco told the Buffalo News. “At the time I did it, I felt that I didn’t have any other way to get the care that I need for my leukemia.”
Federal marshals informed Morrocco on Friday that they have a warrant for his arrest, and he said he will turn himself in Monday.
Morrocco will appear before a judge to answer charges that he violated the terms of his five-year term of supervised release by shoplifting. The judge could then determine that, because of this violation, Morrocco will be sent back to prison. |
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