‘Is that a Banana in your pocket, you are you just here to rob me?”

Man Who Used Banana in Robbery Sentenced

source: Associated Press Strange News

LYNCHBURG, Va. – A Lynchburg man who robbed a convenience store by pretending a banana was a gun was sentenced to 18 months in prison.

Patrick Jason Mann, 29, entered the 7-Eleven store last 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 left the store with about $10 and was arrested soon after leaving.

Before Mann robbed the 7-Eleven, he broke into another shop where he had worked for about three years and stole about $700.

His sentence imposed Friday included time for that burglary.

Mann said he had a crack cocaine addiction that was costing him up to $300 a day.

“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.”

Along with imposing the prison term, Circuit Judge J. Leyburn Mosby Jr. ordered Mann to pay back the money he stole, undergo 18 months of supervised probation and get substance abuse treatment.

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