Help getting around paying for my phone's data plan?

So you know how when you buy a smartphone and you need to get a data plan with it. My cousin buys used phones without a contract and puts his sim card in it and doesn't need to pay for the data plan. On Verizon there aren't sim cards. So if I bought something like an HTC Ozone off Craigslist and brought it to the Verizon store, would they still make me get the data plan?