Ex-Con Attempts To Go Back To Jail For Health Care

Frank Morrocco, an ex-convict, walked out of a supermarket on November 26 with $23 in stolen items. Why you ask?

According to ABC News, Morrocco was hoping his petty theft would be enough to put him back in jail, where he could receive treatment for his leukemia.

Morrocco turned himself in, on Monday, after he found out that there was a federal warrant out for his arrest for violating the terms of his five-year supervised release.

Morrocco was just released from prison last December after having served 20 years on drug charges.

A federal judge denied him his wish to return to jail on Monday.

Morrocco, 56, saw his recent shoplifting as a life and death decision that he had to make.

Morrocco told WIVB:

“Actually, I didn’t want to go back to prison, but did I want to die out here? Absolutely not. I want to live.”

When Morrocco appeared before the judge on Monday, the judge ordered him to go to the Roswell Park Cancer Institute and apply for health coverage under the New York Bridge plan.

The New York Bridge plan is run by the state and caters to people with pre-existing conditions.

Morrocco said, “I am thankful that it looks like I’m going to get health care coverage.”

Sadly enough, this is not the first time that someone has committed a crime to get health care..

Last year, Richard James Verone handed a bank teller at RBC Bank in Gastonia, North Carolina a note demanding $1 and claiming that he had a gun.

Verone had a growth in his chest, two ruptured disks, and no job. With no job and not health care, he hoped a three-year stay in prison would afford him the health care he needed.

Verone told reporters:

“I’m sort of a logical person, and that was my logic, what I came up with. If it is called manipulation, then out of necessity because I need medical care, then I guess I am manipulating the courts to get medical care.”

Verone was released from prison last July.