Man Robs Restaurant to Get Medical Attention; Judge Sends Him to Prison

A gunman who demanded only part of a restaurant’s cash and then just ambled away apparently was trying to get arrested so he could get medical attention, a judge says.

Now the man is going to prison.

“Times are rough out there,” said District Judge Clifford Hopper. But the judge said it was his policy to put armed robbers behind bars, and this case was no exception.

Wilber Lee Smith, 60, who had no known previous criminal record, pleaded guilty last week to armed robbery in the Nov. 25 holdup of a pancake house. He was sentenced to three years in prison and two years of probation.

Hopper told the Tulsa World that evidence indicated Smith was trying to get arrested in order to get health care.

Smith, a diabetic who has undergone heart bypass surgery, “apparently had no place to turn for his medical expenses,” said Allen Litchfield, a Tulsa County prosecutor.

A waitress at the pancake house told investigators that Smith asked only for some of the money from the cash register and then advised her to call authorities “and tell them which way I am going.”

With two employees following him, he walked away from the restaurant, sat on a bench and counted the $115 he had taken, according to police reports.