USPS carrier directed victim’s mail to own address, stole 180 people’s mail, feds say

Mail belonging to more than 180 people was discovered at the home of a postal carrier in Virginia, federal officials said.

The 40-year-old woman pleaded guilty to mail theft by a Postal Service employee and now has been sentenced to one year and one month in prison, the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Eastern District of Virginia said in a May 29 news release.

McClatchy News reached out to the woman’s attorney May 31 and did not immediately receive a response. The U.S. Postal Service declined to comment.

In 2022, the former U.S. Postal Service employee removed customers’ mail from circulation and brought it to her home in Richmond, federal officials said in court documents.

She picked out items of worth, such as checks and gift cards, and forged checks belonging to other people, officials said. She added her name to the “pay to the order of” section of checks that were worth amounts including $900, $1,000 and $5,000, according to prosecutors.

The woman is accused of using financial information on the victims’ checks to create electronic transactions from their accounts to pay personal expenses, including rent, tax bills, Comcast bills and pest control.

In one instance, the woman listed a victim’s bank account in her online rent portal and transferred $10,000 from the victim’s account to pay her rent, federal officials said in court documents. She’s also accused of changing that person’s address in the USPS system to redirect the victim’s mail to her own home.

Around Oct. 18, 2022, law enforcement searched her home and found mail belonging to more than 180 other people and checks belonging to 30 other people, officials said.

In a sentencing memorandum, prosecutors said her actions “were not momentary lapses in judgment.”

She pleaded guilty Feb. 29 and faced up to five years in prison, documents show.

This story was originally published May 31, 2024 at 1:08 PM with the headline "USPS carrier directed victim’s mail to own address, stole 180 people’s mail, feds say."