Linda Thompson, a 59-year-old resident of Cheyenne, WY, who spent 18 years behind bars, robbed a bank last month to be able to return to prison. This week, she told a district court judge that jail is her “home” and she wants to “return home.”
Sentencing was slated for Oct. 12, 2016.
The woman was taken in custody July 27 after she robbed a local bank in her home town. According to witness reports, after the heist she went outside the bank and handed part of the money to strangers, while tossing the rest of bills into the air.
Next she patiently waited for the police to arrive. The woman had been released from jail in June after she had served 18 years for robbing another bank and six other similar crimes. The woman begged authorities to allow her to stay in jail but nobody listened.
She reportedly decided to go back “home,” after some strangers beat her in a local park in July. She told investigators that she was denied shelter at a homeless center, so she thought that committing another crime would land her in jail once more.
According to a FBI report, the woman entered a US Bank branch and handed an employee a note reading that she had a gun and wanted all the money. The woman stole $16,300.
Police officers that arrested her said that they found a large sum of money with the woman. When Thomson was asked what happened she admitted that she robbed the bank to return to prison.
On Wednesday, during a hearing she said she just wants to resume her prison stay.
‘Prison is home to me. I’m just going back home,’
she told the judge.
The 59-year-old now risks up to 20 years behind bars and $250,000 fine. When the judged asked whether the defendant had something to add at the end of the hearing she said that she would want “as much time as possible.”
Before she was released she told officers that she wouldn’t do well on parole. Yet, she had some hard time in jail too as a transgender, a recent report shows, as she had to slash her own testicles with a razor blade when she was serving time in an Idaho jail.
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