Man stole over $250K in postage stamps using stolen identities, including in Sacramento County

A Stockton man pleaded guilty Tuesday to stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars in postage stamps by writing checks in other people’s names and cashing them at regional postal offices, including in Sacramento County, federal prosecutors said.

Charles Dean Good, 55, pleaded guilty to theft of government property and aggravated identity theft, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of California.

According to the plea agreement, Good wrote checks under fake names, in addition to stealing people’s identity. He passed at more than 1,300 fraudulent checks from 2012 until 2019, which swindled the U.S. Postal Service out of just over $252,000, the plea agreement said.

“Good would typically pass checks for relatively small amounts, sometimes multiple times in one day, to avoid detection,” the plea agreement said.

In one instance, Good also cashed multiple $150 checks for a business — rather than a person — at three post offices in and around Stockton.

Good also wrote the California driver’s license number and victim’s name on a counterfeit check while turning it in at a Sacramento post office. He got $250 worth of stamps from the Postal Service, the plea agreement said.

Good bypassed the Postal Service’s processes to verify a customer’s identity.

“In order to pass the bad checks, Good would write on the face of the checks the California Driver’s License number of the victim he was impersonating and sign the victim’s name,” the plea agreement said. “This was to make it easier for the post office employee to process the check and avoid scrutiny of the fake form of identification presented. The handwriting across all of the recovered checks in the investigation was identical. “

Good is scheduled to be sentenced Sept. 10. He faces up to 12 years in prison, prosecutors said.