Page 8 - IAV Digital Magazine #428

iAV - Antelope Valley Digital Magazine
Remorseful Husband Who Robbed Bank To Escape Wife Is Sentenced To Home Confinement
By Katy and Tony Rizzo
A remorseful 71- year-old man who robbed a Kansas City, Kan., bank last September and told police he hoped to land in prison to escape his wife told a federal judge Tuesday that heart surgery had left him depressed and unlike himself when he committed the crime.
Though Lawrence John Ripple pleaded guilty to bank rob- bery in January and could have spent up to 37 months in prison, his attorney and federal prosecu- tors asked a U.S. District Court judge for leniency. That request was support- ed by the vice presi- dent of the bank and the teller whom Ripple frightened, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Sheri Catania.
U.S. District Court Judge Carlos Murguia sentenced Ripple on Tuesday to six months of home confinement after public defender Chekasha Ramsey and Catania cited Ripple’s health issues, remorse and unlikeliness to reof- fend.
Ripple will also serve three years of supervised proba- tion, including 50
hours of community service. He was ordered to pay $227.27 to the bank he robbed — the amount representing the billable hours for bank employees who were sent home on the day of rob- bery — and $100 to a crime victims fund.
Ripple’s story gained national attention last fall when he walked into the Bank of Labor, located a block away from the Kansas City, Kan., police headquarters, and gave a note to the teller. It read: “I have a gun, give me money,” according to court documents.
After the teller gave Ripple $2,924, Ripple sat down in the bank lobby to wait for police, and later told authorities that he had written out a robbery note in front of his wife and told her he would rather be in jail than at home.
Ramsey told a judge Tuesday that before the September inci- dent, Ripple had lived a law-abiding life. He had no crimi- nal record, was a dutiful father to four step-children and was in a stable rela- tionship with his wife.
He suffered from
depression after undergoing a quadruple bypass heart surgery in 2015, Ramsey said. The depression remained undiag- nosed and manifest- ed as irritability, so Ripple didn’t think to report his symptoms to a doctor.
Calling the robbery a “cry for help,” Ramsey said that Ripple has since been properly diag- nosed, is on proper medication and feels like his normal self again.
“Mr. Ripple under- stands what he did and he respects the law as indicated by
his past behavior,” said Ramsey, who told the judge that Ripple had also been attending man- dated counseling sessions with his wife.
Accompanied by his wife and several family members Tuesday, Ripple appeared remorseful and apologized to both Bank of Labor and the bank teller. He declined to talk to The Star.
“It was not my inten- tion to frighten her (the teller) as I did,” Ripple said in court Tuesday.
Ripple said that he
felt better after find- ing the right medica- tion and said prison would be more of a punishment for his wife than for him.
“I feel great now,” Ripple said. “I feel like my old self.”
Both Murguia and Catania said that it was extremely uncommon for a per- son convicted of bank robbery to receive a sentence that doesn’t involve prison time. Catania said she had only requested the court to consider other sentencing options in two other occa- sions throughout her career.
iAV - Antelope Valley Digital Magazine