BLAMING the TV for bad behaviour is passable for a four-year-old, but at 26 you need to start taking responsibility for your actions.
Chasing a codeine hit, Joseph Aaron Stewart, claimed a Netflix series had sown the seeds for his criminal strategy to obtain the drug, by coercing pharmacy staff into pilfering prescription cough syrup for him.
San Jose newspaper, The Mercury News, reported Stewart has received a seven-year jail term for his crime spree.
The paper reported that over a three-month period, Stewart targeted pharmacy staff at stores across six suburbs.
"In some cases, Stewart would hand an employee a note claiming to have a gun and then demand the medication and sometimes money," the paper reported.
"In other cases he would jump over the counter to look for the cough syrup. In one case he stole $20 from an employee's purse."
The crime spree ended in Sep when he robbed a CVS store, with staff reporting "a man pointed an apparent handgun at the staff, jumped over the pharmacy counter and looted the controlled substances area", the paper reported.
Prior to sentencing, Stewart told a probation officer that he got the idea to rob pharmacies from a TV program he streamed, claiming the loss of his job combined with the breakdown of a relationship led him to abuse the drugs, adding without a job he wasn't able to afford them.
The series that inspired Stewart's spree was not named.
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