PostalReporter News Blog

September 2, 2010

(HOUSTON) – Linda Taylor, 50, of Coldspring, Texas, has been arrested as a result of the return of a one-count indictment charging her with theft of U.S. Mail, United States Attorney Jose Angel Moreno announced today. 

Indicted by a Houston grand jury on Aug. 19, 2010, Taylor surrendered to agents with the United States Postal Service – Office of Inspector General (USPS-OIG) today. Following a hearing before United States Magistrate Judge John Froeschner, Taylor has been ordered released on a $5,000 bond.

The indictment  arose from an investigation conducted by USPS-OIG special agents into a complaint by a Coldspring resident residing along a route serviced by Taylor that an item she had placed as outgoing mail in her curbside mailbox for retrieval by aletter carrier had never been deliveredto the intended recipients. 

Taylor began her employment as a contractor for the USPS in May 2008. If convicted, Taylor faces a maximum penalty of five years imprisonment and/or a $250,000 fine.

The case is being prosecuted by Special Assistant United States Attorney Tammie Y. Moore.   

An indictment is a formal accusation of criminal conduct, not evidence.
A defendant is presumed innocent unless convicted through due process of law.

source: United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Texas

GREENBELT, MD. — Prosecutors say a former postmaster has pleaded guilty to stealing nearly $60,000 in stamps from the post office where he worked.

Fifty-six-year-old Gilbert Ennis of Lanham entered the plea Tuesday. He will be sentenced Dec. 6 and has agreed to pay restitution from his federal retirement account.

According to his plea agreement, on Nov. 23, Ennis reported an armed gunman had entered the post office when he was working there alone, demanded he open the safe and ordered Ennis into a bathroom.

Ennis told authorities that a box in the safe that held more than $50,000 in stamps was stolen.

Investigators found the box in Ennis’ car and that nearly $2,000 worth of stamps were missing from his drawer.

Read more at the Washington Examiner:

CORBIN — By Carl Keith Greene / Staff Writer

John Henry Sears and Alyssia Lynn Adkins, U.S. Postal Service employees, have been charged in separate indictments with embezzling mail.

Sears, who is scheduled for arraignment in U.S. District Court in London on Aug. 23, is charged on two counts.

Adkins, who worked at the Heidrick, Ky., Post Office, was also charged on two counts.

The first count charges that between Sept. 8, and Sept. 16, 2009, Adkins embezzled “a postal card or mail and its contents” intended to be conveyed by mail.

Full story: Local area postal workers charged with embezzlement TheTimesTribune.com, Corbin, KY.

A former postal employee in Minto, N.D., charged with embezzling money has been sentenced to a year of probation and 75 hours of community service.

Laura Satterlund, 34, has paid back nearly $4,900 to the U.S. Postal Service, according to minutes from Monday’s sentencing in federal court.

Full story: Former Minto, N.D., postmaster sentenced for theft | Grand Forks Herald

Press Release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia

WASHINGTON – Shareen Wilson, 42, a former mail carrier with the United States Postal Service (“USPS”), was sentenced today to 25 months of incarceration and ordered to pay $134,416.27 in restitution for her role in a scheme to steal United States and District of Columbia treasury checks from the mail and cash them at local check cashing establishments using fake identification documents, U.S. Attorney Ronald C. Machen Jr. announced.

The Honorable John D. Bates, of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, presided over the sentencing. Wilson pleaded guilty on June 2, 2010, before Judge Bates to one count of conspiracy to commit mail fraud and one count of theft of mail by U.S. Postal Employee.

Altogether, Wilson and the other members of the stolen check scheme were responsible for the theft and fraudulent negotiation of more than $130,000 in stolen United States and District of Columbia treasury checks, using false and fraudulent identification documents. More than 50 individuals and businesses were victimized by the scheme either because their mail was stolen or because they sustained an economic loss by cashing the checks.

According to the government’s evidence, from May 2008 through February 2010, Wilson stole more than 50 United States and District of Columbia treasury checks from the USPS River Terrace Carrier Annex in Northeast Washington, where she was assigned. These checks had been mailed by the United States and District of Columbia governments to intended recipients in Washington, D.C. Many of these checks had been entrusted to Wilson’s custody for delivery on her own postal
route. Others had been stolen by Wilson from boxes assigned to other mail carriers.

After removing the checks from the USPS River Terrace Carrier Annex, Wilson provided them to a co-conspirator. The co-conspirator recruited various individuals (referred to as “cashers”) to cash the stolen treasury checks using fake and fraudulent identification documents, including fake District
of Columbia driver’s licenses bearing the photographs of the cashers but the names and addresses of the intended recipients of the treasury checks. The co-conspirator obtained the fake and fraudulent identification documents from an individual known as the “ID Dude.”

The co-conspirator had at least eight cashers working for him directly or indirectly. The cashers generally cashed the stolen checks at local liquor stores. In exchange for providing stolen United States and District of Columbia treasury checks, the co-conspirator paid Wilson a portion of the proceeds of the checks, ranging from $200 to $850 per check.

In announcing the sentence, U.S. Attorney Machen commended the outstanding investigative work of agents of the USPS Office of Inspector General, Special Agent Derek Savoy of the D.C. Office of Inspector General, Postal Inspector Christopher Saunders of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, agents of the U.S. Secret Service, and Detective Michael Pavero of the Metropolitan Police Department. U.S. Attorney Machen also praised the efforts of members of the U.S. Attorney’s Office, including Legal Assistant Jamasee Lucas, Paralegal Specialists Sarah Reis and Mary Treanor, and Assistant U.S. Attorneys David Johnson and Ellen Chubin Epstein, who prosecuted the case.

Press Release from the U.S> Attorney for the District of Connecticut:

August 11, 2010

David B. Fein, United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut, announced that KEVIN RYAN, 54, of Avon, was sentenced today by Senior United States District Judge Ellen Bree Burns in New Haven to two years of probation for misappropriating postal funds.

According to court documents and statements made in court,  between June 2008 and June 2009, RYAN was the Officer in Charge of the North Canton Post Office.  While serving as the Office in Charge, RYAN imprinted and deposited into his personal bank account postal money orders without making the required corresponding payments to the U.S. Postal Service until days or weeks later.  During this time, RYAN kited approximately 66 money orders.  When interviewed by federal agents on June 10, 2009, RYAN turned over six money order vouchers that had been redeemed but not paid for.

The total amount of money RYAN failed to pay to the U.S. Postal Service was $2,040.  Today, Judge Burns ordered that RYAN make full restitution.

RYAN pleaded guilty to the offense on May 13, 2010.

This matter was investigated by the United States Postal Service, Office of Inspector General.  The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Paul H. McConnell.

HIGHLANDS RANCH – An overnight mail handler stole more than 11,000 packages over two years before he was caught by federal agents, 9Wants to Know has learned.

Upon being observed and caught by USPS special agents in January 2010, Schmauder admitted to stealing about 50 packages two or three nights a week since January 2008.

The thefts “became addictive and escalated over time” said Schmauder, according to court documents.

He targeted boxes from online retailers including Amazon.com, stealing CDs, DVDs and Victoria’s Secret lingerie.

Full story: 9NEWS.com | Denver | Colorado’s Online News Leader | Postal employee admits to massive mail theft.

A U.S. Postal Service worker has been charged with stealing mail — mostly envelopes she suspected contained gift cards — from the Arlington Main Post Office.

According to an affidavit filed in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Alva D. Jackson, an Arlington mail carrier, allegedly stole items from the mail from October 2008 to March 2010.

She stole and used gift cards for Target, Macy’s, Best Buy, Wal-Mart and various restaurants, according to the affidavit. Jackson estimated that she took about 10 to 20 pieces of mail per week during the holiday seasons, and 10 or fewer pieces at other times.

Read more : Postal worker accused of stealing gift cards from mail | Washington Examiner.

California letter carrier Henry Lee Monday appealed his conviction for stealing $40  from a “test letter” planted by Postal Inspectors, claiming he wasn’t going to keep the money. Here are excerpts from the case:

Henry Lee Monday appeals his conviction by a jury of violating 18 U.S.C. § 1709, which, in pertinent part, provides felony penalties for a United States Postal Service employee entrusted with mail who “steals, abstracts, or removes from any such letter, package, bag, or mail, any article or thing contained therein . . . .” Monday does not dispute the essential facts of the case, which establish that, while delivering mail as a Postal Service letter carrier, he opened a letter containing a birthday card, removed $40 in cash from the card, and used a portion of those funds to purchase snack food from a liquor store. Monday’s sole contention is that the district court erred in refusing to instruct the jury that, to convict, the government was required to prove that Monday had the specific intent permanently to deprive the owner of the money that he removed.

We conclude that the statute, in prohibiting Postal Employees from removing contents from mailed items, contains no such specific intent requirement. We therefore affirm Monday’s conviction.

BACKGROUND

A factual twist in this case is that the incriminating letter was a “test letter” placed in the mail by postal inspectors who were conducting an investigation of Monday for mail theft. At trial, Monday attempted to turn this fact to his advantage by testifying that he “knew the letter was a ‘plant’ ” but opened it “because [he] had a lot of things on [his] mind that [he] had wanted to discuss with the postal inspectors, and [he] figured at that time that they would come and arrest [him] or do what they had to do so [he] could talk to them.” He stated that he did not intend to steal the money. Had the district court instructed the jury that conviction required proof beyond a reasonable doubt that Monday “intended to permanently deprive” the Government of its money, as Monday proposed, this rather novel defense might at least have made theoretical sense. Under the instruction actually given by the court, however, the only mental element that the Government had to prove was that Monday took the money “knowing that it belonged to someone else,” a fact to which Monday had already attested.

Conclusion

Monday was properly convicted of removing money from a mailed letter in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1709. That offense does not include an element of specific intent permanently to deprive the owner of the money of its property. The district court accordingly did not err in refusing to instruct the jury on that element. The judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED.

Here is the full decision- United States of America v. Henry Lee Monday, Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of California

DES MOINES, Iowa — A postal clerk from Indianola has been sentenced to a year in prison after pleading guilty to embezzling more than $240,000.

The U.S. attorney says 47-year-old Kimberly Sue Nordhagen was sentenced Friday after admitting to converting Postal Service money orders and cash transactions to her own use.

Nordhagen, who worked at the West Suburban Station in Clive, admitted to stealing the money between January 2004 and March 2009.

In addition to her sentence, she was ordered to make full restitution to the Postal Service.

source: Associated Press