BOSTON – Two United States Postal Service employees, along with two others, were indicted on drug trafficking charges.

GERARD HARRINGTON, 48, of Stoneham; JOHN THIBEDEAU, 48, of Waltham; SEAN WILLIAMSON, 41, of Peabody; and WILLIAM ZULUAGA, 57, of East Boston, were indicted on charges of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute and distribution of cocaine and possession with intent to distribute and distribution of cocaine. At a hearing this afternoon, the prosecutor told the court that, Harrington and Williamson, Postal employees, allegedly sold cocaine while on duty at the Somerville Post Office.

The indictment alleges that beginning on at least May 13, 2011, and on at least five different occasions thereafter, the defendants knowingly possessed with the intent to distribute and did distribute, cocaine.

If convicted on these charges, Harrington, Thibedeau, Williamson and Zuluaga each face up to 20 years in prison to be followed by three years of supervised release and a fine of up to $1 million.

United States Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz and Jane Hughes, Special Agent in Charge, United States Postal Service Office of Inspector General, Northeast Area Field Office made the announcement today. Also assisting in the investigation are the Massachusetts State Police, Middlesex County, PACT Unit, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Office of Homeland Security Investigations in Boston and the Somerville Police Department. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Eugenia M. Carris of Ortiz’s Public Corruption and Special Prosecutions Unit.

BIRMINGHAM, Ala., Sept. 27 — The U.S. Department of Justice’s U.S. Attorney’s office for Northern District of Alabama issued the following press release:

A federal grand jury today returned separate indictments charging two U.S. Postal Service employees with mail related violations, announced U.S. Attorney Joyce White Vance and Postal Service Office of Inspector General Assistant Special Agent in Charge Kenny Smith.

The indictments filed in U.S. District Court charge the two Postal Service employees with delaying mail delivery and stealing from the mail.

ERWIN MICHELLE WATSON, 28, of Moulton, is charged with one count of delay of mail and one count of mail theft by a postal employee, both on Nov. 4, 2010. Watson worked as a mail carrier at the Decatur Post Office.

LENNIE MATTHEW WILLIAMS JR., 25, of Birmingham, is charged with delaying mail delivery and stealing from the mail between Aug. 9 and 10, 2010. Williams worked as a mail handler in the Birmingham Processing and Distribution Center Annex.

"Postal employees who abuse this system do us all a great disservice," Vance said. "My office prosecutes these cases aggressively because we are all entitled to rely on the security of the U.S. Postal Service."

The maximum sentence for mail theft by a postal employee and for delay and destruction of mail is five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

The U.S. Postal Service’s Office of Inspector General investigated the cases. Assistant U.S. Attorney Frank M. Salter is prosecuting the cases.

Camden, N.J. – A Flanders, N.J., woman admitted today to embezzling $69,850 from the U.S. Postal Service, U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman announced.

Thea Sisler, 31, pleaded guilty today to an Information charging her with intentionally misappropriating funds from the U.S. Postal Service while working as a postal service employee. Sisler entered her guilty plea before U.S. District Judge Jerome B. Simandle in Camden federal court.

According to documents filed in this case and statements made in court:

From June 2009 through September 2010 Sisler was an employee at the Stockholm, N.J., post office. In the course of her work she was in control of money belonging to the U.S. Postal Service. During that same time period, Sisler embezzled $69,850 of those postal service funds.

The count to which Sisler pleaded guilty carries a statutory maximum prison sentence of 10 years and a fine of $250,000, or twice the gross gain or loss from the offense. Sentencing is currently scheduled for Jan. 20, 2012, before Judge Simandle.

U.S. Attorney Fishman credited special agents of the U.S. Postal Service – Office of Investigations, under the supervision of Special Agent in Charge Philip R. Bartlett with the investigation leading to today’s guilty plea.

The government is represented by Assistant U.S. Attorney Jacques S. Pierre of the U.S. Attorney’s Office Health Care and Government Fraud Unit.

UNITED STATES ATTORNEY RICHARD S. HARTUNIAN announced that DOUGLAS HARRINGTON pled guilty today before Senior United States District Court Judge Thomas J. McAvoy, in Albany, New York, to the felony offense of theft of mail matter by a postal employee. Sentencing for HARRINGTON is scheduled for February 15, 2012 in Albany.
As a result of the conviction HARRINGTON faces a maximum sentence of imprisonment of up to 5 years, supervised release of up to 3 years, a fine of up to $250,000, and a special assessment of $100.

HARRINGTON, age 53, of Glens Falls, New York, a postal employee for over 30 years, was a letter carrier assigned to the Glens Falls Post Office. He admitted that he stole items from the mail that he picked up and delivered as a letter carrier between September 2010 and April 2011. The items that HARRINGTON stole included prescription drugs, United States currency, and collectors cards.

Criminal charges were filed against three employees of the U.S. Postal Service for their alleged actions in unrelated cases, said Steven M. Dettelbach, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Ohio.

A criminal information was filed against Lynda Mackey, age 24, of Fremont, Ohio. The charge relates to embezzlement of postal funds by a postal employee between on or about November, 2010 and April, 2011.

Eric R. Ramsey, age 27, of Toledo, Ohio was charged with theft of mail by a postal employee on or about January 18, 2011.

Marsha Ann Deitemyer, age 54, of Elmore, Ohio, was charged with obstruction of U.S. mail between on or about August 31, 2010 and April 29, 2011.

If convicted, defendants’ sentences will be determined by the Court after review of factors unique to each case, including the defendant’s prior criminal record, if any, the defendant’s role in the offense and the characteristics of the violation. In all cases, the sentence will not exceed the statutory maximum and in most cases it will be less than the maximum.

The investigating agency in these cases is the Office of Inspector General, United States Postal Service. The cases are being handled by Assistant United States Attorney Thomas O. Secor.

An information is only a charge and is not evidence of guilt. The burden of proof is always on the government to prove a defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

See also the Toledo Blade

WICHITA, KAN. – A former secretary/treasurer of the Letter Carriers Branch 1412 in Garden City pleaded guilty today to embezzling more than $20,000 from the union.

Lanny F. Pauley, 67, Garden City, Kan., pleaded guilty to one count of embezzlement by a labor organization officer. In his plea he admitted that from 2002 to 2007 he embezzled $20,325 from the union by writing checks to himself or misusing the union credit card.

Sentencing is set for Nov. 28. He faces a maximum penalty of five years in federal prison and a fine up to $250,000.

Grissom commended the Department of Labor and Assistant U.S. Attorney Lanny Welch for their work on the case.

via USDOJ: US Attorney’s Office – District Of Kansas.

The following information was released by the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Arizona:

- The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Arizona announced that a federal grand jury in Tucson returned a 12-count indictment against former Postal Service Officer Anna Cecilia Miranda for passing forged and altered U.S. Postal Service money orders after knowingly and unlawfully stealing those money orders from Pirtleville, Ariz., Post Office customers.

The indictment alleges that the defendant knowingly and unlawfully stole numerous money orders from Pirtleville Post Office customers, including money orders intended for home loan and mortgage payments, and forged and altered those U.S. Postal Service money orders with the intent to defraud.

A conviction for a violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 500 carries a maximum penalty of five years in federal prison, a $250,000 fine, or both. A conviction for a violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 1709 carries the same penalty.

An indictment is simply the method by which a person is charged with criminal activity and raises no inference of guilt. An individual is presumed innocent until competent evidence is presented to a jury that establishes guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

The investigation preceding the indictment was conducted by United States Postal Service, Office of Inspector General. The prosecution is being handled by Melissa A. Meister, Assistant U.S. Attorney, District of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona.

The following information was released by the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Maryland:

U.S. District Judge Catherine C. Blake, sentenced James M. Russell, age 49, of Brandywine, Maryland, today to six months in prison, followed by six months of home detention and two years of supervised release, for theft of mail while he was employed by the U.S. Postal Service. Judge Blake also ordered Russell to perform 100 hours of community service.

The sentence was announced by United States Attorney for the District of Maryland Rod J. Rosenstein and Special Agent in Charge Joanne Yarbrough of the U.S. Postal Service, Office of Inspector General.

Joanne Yarbrough, Special Agent in Charge of the U.S. Postal Service, Office of Inspector General said, "Postal Service employees hold a position of public trust and the large majority of employees, with few exceptions, take this responsibility very seriously. Unfortunately, in this case, that trust was broken. The Office of Inspector General will continue to aggressively investigate complaints of mail theft and serious misconduct by Postal Service employees."

According to court documents, from October 1998 until his arrest on November 9, 2010, Russell worked as a motor vehicle operator for the U.S. Postal Service. His duties included off-loading mail containers from his vehicle to the facility where the mail was being delivered, which gave him access to areas of the workroom floor at the Northwood Station post office. Following several days of surveillance where Russell was seen stealing parcels from carrier hampers, taking them to his truck, then dumping the remnants of the packages in a dumpster or wooded area near the Northwood Station post office, Russell was arrested and suspended without pay.

Further investigation and review of surveillance video over the year for which it was available showed that on at least 50 occasions, since early November 2009, Russell had been entering the workroom floor at the Northwood Station when no other postal employees were around, rifling through mail carrier hampers and selecting parcels that looked like they might contain something of value. Russell was seen on the video placing those parcels into white Postal Service flat boxes or in his coat and then leaving the station. Between July 30, 2009 and November 2010, more than 200 identifiable remnants of parcels were recovered from the same dump area where postal agents saw Russell dump parcels in November 2010. Video surveillance also showed Russell’s work truck slowing and stopping near the dump site on multiple occasions. The packaging and invoices recovered indicate the type of items stolen included DVDs, CDs, books, jewelry, and other items shipped in small parcels.

United States Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein commended the U.S. Postal Service, Office of Inspector General for its work in the investigation. Mr. Rosenstein thanked Assistant United States Attorney Kristi N. O’Malley, who prosecuted the case.

The following information was released by the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District Of Missouri:

The United States Attorney’s Office announced that Teresa Tremusini, Festus Postmaster, was sentenced to 24 months in prison followed by one year of supervised release. In June she was convicted of two felony counts of receipt of illegal gratuities. The owner of SG Print and Mail, an SG Print and Mail employee and one Postal employee previously entered guilty pleas in the $3.8 million scheme.

According to court documents and testimony presented at trial, Robert Scott Gray defrauded the U.S. Postal Service by falsely claiming stamps were used on bulk mailings and by concealing documentation of mailings from the Postal Service to avoid payment.

Teresa Tremusini became Postmaster of the Festus, Missouri, Post Office in December 2005. Robert Scott Gray was President and Owner of SG Print and Mail, Inc. Michael A. Jones was an employee of the U.S. Postal Service. Donna Beckman was an employee of SG Print and Mail from January 2005 to September 2007. Her duties included the preparation of the U.S. Postal Service paperwork that accompanied bulk mailings by SG Print and Mail.

SG Print and Mail provided direct mail services to clients. A client would contract with SG Print and Mail to perform a direct mailing, for example, of 30,000 mail pieces. Typically SG Print and Mail contracted with a printer to print the mail pieces. SG Print and Mail would then prepare the direct mailing by placing addresses on each mail piece and sorting the mail pieces by address/zip code for bulk mailing.

Between January 2005 and December 2006, Robert Scott Gray directed Donna Beckman to lie about the number of pre-canceled stamps that they used and to falsify the Postal forms describing how many they had used. Additionally, Gray paid Teresa Tremusini $20,000, payable in two cashier’s checks in August 2006, and in January 2007 paid Michael Jones $10,000 cash. These payments were in return for the approval of bulk mail postal forms.

The loss to the U.S. Postal Service for these schemes was a total of approximately $3.8 million.

TERESA TREMUSINI, St. Louis, Missouri, was convicted of on two felony counts of receipt of illegal gratuities on Friday, June 3, 2011. She appeared today for sentencing before United States District Judge Rodney W. Sippel.

Robert Scott Gray, Fenton, MO, pled guilty in April to five felony counts of mail fraud, four felony counts of making false statements and three felony counts of giving an illegal gratuity, and is scheduled for sentencing September 30th.

Michael A. Jones, Pacific, MO, pled guilty in March to one felony count of receipt of illegal gratuity, and was sentenced in June to two years of probation.

Donna Beckman pled guilty earlier this year to two felony counts of mail fraud and was sentenced to three years probation, 80 hours of community service, along with $2.8 million restitution.

This case was investigated by the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and the United States Postal Service Office of Inspector General. Assistant United States Attorney Carrie Costantin is handling the case for the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

TOPEKA, KAN. – The former postmaster of the Whiting, Kan., post office has been indicted on charges of embezzling government funds, U.S. Attorney Barry Grissom said Thursday.

Terri L. Morris, 49, Holton, Kan., is charged with two counts of making a false writing and one count of embezzling public funds. The indictment alleges the crimes took place at various times from Oct. 1, 2008, to Aug. 24, 2010, while Morris was Postmaster in the town of about 200 in Jackson County, Kan.

The indictment alleges that in 2010 investigators with the Postal Service made an unannounced visit to the Whiting Post Office and conducted an audit that showed a shortage of more than $7,000.

If convicted, Morris faces a maximum penalty of 5 years in federal prison and a fine up to $250,000 on each count of making a false writing, and a maximum penalty of 10 years and a fine up to $250,000 on the embezzlement count. The U.S. Postal Service investigated. Assistant U.S. Attorney Christine Kenney is prosecuting.