Department of Justice Press release:

Little Rock – Jane W. Duke, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas, announced the waiver of indictment and guilty plea of Andre Ben of Sherwood, Arkansas.

On January 29, 2009, Ben pled guilty to one count of theft of mail by a postal employee before Chief United States District Judge J. Leon Holmes. Ben faces a statutory sentence of up to five years imprisonment, a $250,000 fine, or both. In addition, any term of imprisonment will be followed by up to three years of supervised release. A sentencing date will be set by the court at a later date.

According to the Information, Ben served as the Acting Officer-in-Charge of the England, Arkansas Post Office from November 2006 until May 2008. While in that position, Ben stole cash and money orders from the United States Mail that was intended for Charles Capps Ministries. Ben then converted those funds for his own use and benefit. The Ministry estimates that it suffered a loss of over $38,000. Specific loss calculations will be determined at sentencing.

Duke stated, “Theft by any governmental official is a very serious matter. But, when you couple this type of abuse with the fact that the official was stealing from a charitable institution, the conduct becomes even more egregious.” She added, “Our Office and the Office of Inspector General for the Postal Service are committed to aggressively investigating and prosecuting those individuals who abuse their positions of public trust.”

The case was investigated by the United States Postal Service – Office of the Inspector General. Assistant United States Attorney Karen Whatley is prosecuting the case for the United States.

The Postal Service yesterday confirmed that the decline in mail volumes and revenue accelerated in January. Total mail volume was down 16.3% for the month, compared with an 11.0% drop for the fiscal year to date. The sharpest decline came in Standard Mail, down 22.3% compared with January 2008. First Class mail was down 10.8%.

Because of last May’s rate increase, the 16.3% drop in volume produced a revenue drop of 11.8%. That’s still considerably higher than the 7.8% decline for the fiscal year to date. More worrisome is the fact that total expenses have barely dropped since last year- they were down just 1.1% in January, and year to date. Employee work hours declined by 8% compared with last year, but employee salaries and benefits payments dropped by less than a percentage point. Expenses for City Carrier salaries actually increased 1.5%, while “Other” salaries, which includes maintenance, administrative and support personnel, increased by 3.7%.

The filing also confirms that the USPS year to date operating defecit stood at $1.1 billion at the end of January, with eight months still to come in the 2009 fiscal year.

(The postal service cautions that the data in the reports is unaudited and preliminary. In particular, the statistical methods used for estimating revenue, pieces and weight are designed to be valid on a quarterly rather than monthly basis.)

USPS Preliminary Financial Information (January 2009)

Press release:

The City and residents have long expressed significant concerns regarding the Postal Service’s plan to build a roughly 350,000-square-foot regional mail distribution center near homes, a religious facility, teen center, preschool, proposed affordable senior housing development and other vulnerable uses.

Citing the economy’s impact on the U.S. Postal Service’s finances, the Postal Service told the City it will not move ahead with plans to build a massive mail processing center in town.

In a Feb. 27 letter addressed to Mayor Donald Garcia, the Postal Service said that a nationwide freeze on capital spending has been instituted, nixing its plans ‘to proceed with the postal facility in Aliso Viejo or issue the Record of Decision on the Environmental Impact Statement at this time.’

Reports that the Postal Service is facing massive deficits that could force it to cut one day of mail delivery had City officials hopeful the Postal Service would scrap its plans to build a much-contested massive-mail processing center in town. The City and residents have long vehemently expressed concerns regarding the Postal Service’s plan to build a roughly 350,000-square-foot regional mail distribution center near homes, a religious facility, teen center, preschool, proposed affordable senior housing development and other vulnerable uses between 2A and 6 Liberty.

On Monday, city officials were elated but still cautious and reluctant about the Postal Service’s decision to not move forward. During the city’s drawn-out battle to stop the USPS from moving forward with its plans, city officials were told certain things by Postal Service staff that turned out to be false.

‘We were cautiously optimistic when we heard that the Postmaster General was calling for a suspension of capital projects due to the economic disaster the Postal Service found itself in, as it reported several billion dollars of losses over the past year alone,’ said Council Member Carmen Cave. ‘However, we were soon told that the Aliso Viejo project was ‘critical to the operations’ of the Postal Service. This announcement just validates our perception based upon our experience with the Postal Service and the way they have not been totally upfront with city staff or the people of Aliso Viejo.’