2dogs
February 11, 2003, 06:50 AM
Yeah, but don't we need a ban on bananas?
http://www.newsadvance.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=LNA%2FMGArticle%2FLNA_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1031768712742&path=!frontpage
Banana bandit gets 18 months in prison
By Bill Freehling / Lynchburg News and Advance
February 7, 2003
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A Lynchburg man who robbed a 7-Eleven by pretending a banana was a gun was sentenced to 18 months in prison Friday in Circuit Court.
Patrick Jason Mann, 29, of 1313 Harding St., entered the 7-Eleven at the corner of Fort Avenue and Wadsworth Street in the early hours of July 4. He took a banana, put it in his pocket like a gun and demanded that the clerk give him money from the register.
Mann escaped the store with about $10 and was arrested soon after leaving.
The same 7-Eleven had been robbed of $42 less than a week before. Benjamin Adorn Barcliff, who pleaded guilty to malicious wounding and robbery last week, shot clerk Andrew Abbott in his upper right arm during that incident.
Before Mann robbed the 7-Eleven, he broke into The Salon on Old Forest Road and stole about $700. Mann had worked there for about three years. His sentence Friday included time for that burglary.
Mann said he was stealing the money to fund his addiction to crack cocaine, a habit he told police was costing him up to $300 a day at one point.
But he also said he went on the spree as a cry for help. Mann said he is on medication for bipolar disorder and depression. He said he deliberately looked into the security camera at the 7-Eleven and turned himself in to police soon after.
“There really wasn’t much logic to what I did that night,” Mann said. “When you’re in the grip of that drug, it doesn’t make you a very rational person.”
Judge J. Leyburn Mosby Jr. said Mann chose an inappropriate way to seek assistance.
“What you did is you terrorized and violated these people,” Mosby said. “This was really the wrong way to try to get help for yourself.”
Mosby sentenced Mann on the low end of the pre-sentence guidelines. He gave Mann five years for robbery and three years for statutory burglary. He suspended four years of the robbery and all but six months of the burglary.
He also ordered Mann to pay back the money he stole, undergo 18 months of supervised probation and get substance abuse treatment.
ä Contact Bill Freehling at wfreehling@newsadvance.com or (434) 385-5537.
http://www.newsadvance.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=LNA%2FMGArticle%2FLNA_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1031768712742&path=!frontpage
Banana bandit gets 18 months in prison
By Bill Freehling / Lynchburg News and Advance
February 7, 2003
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A Lynchburg man who robbed a 7-Eleven by pretending a banana was a gun was sentenced to 18 months in prison Friday in Circuit Court.
Patrick Jason Mann, 29, of 1313 Harding St., entered the 7-Eleven at the corner of Fort Avenue and Wadsworth Street in the early hours of July 4. He took a banana, put it in his pocket like a gun and demanded that the clerk give him money from the register.
Mann escaped the store with about $10 and was arrested soon after leaving.
The same 7-Eleven had been robbed of $42 less than a week before. Benjamin Adorn Barcliff, who pleaded guilty to malicious wounding and robbery last week, shot clerk Andrew Abbott in his upper right arm during that incident.
Before Mann robbed the 7-Eleven, he broke into The Salon on Old Forest Road and stole about $700. Mann had worked there for about three years. His sentence Friday included time for that burglary.
Mann said he was stealing the money to fund his addiction to crack cocaine, a habit he told police was costing him up to $300 a day at one point.
But he also said he went on the spree as a cry for help. Mann said he is on medication for bipolar disorder and depression. He said he deliberately looked into the security camera at the 7-Eleven and turned himself in to police soon after.
“There really wasn’t much logic to what I did that night,” Mann said. “When you’re in the grip of that drug, it doesn’t make you a very rational person.”
Judge J. Leyburn Mosby Jr. said Mann chose an inappropriate way to seek assistance.
“What you did is you terrorized and violated these people,” Mosby said. “This was really the wrong way to try to get help for yourself.”
Mosby sentenced Mann on the low end of the pre-sentence guidelines. He gave Mann five years for robbery and three years for statutory burglary. He suspended four years of the robbery and all but six months of the burglary.
He also ordered Mann to pay back the money he stole, undergo 18 months of supervised probation and get substance abuse treatment.
ä Contact Bill Freehling at wfreehling@newsadvance.com or (434) 385-5537.