Community Chat

[SeaMaiden]

Postal Worker "Too Stressed" to Deliver Mail, Rents Storage Unit to Hide It.

posted by R.J. Johnson - @rickerthewriter -  Jan 30, 2020

A Virginia postal worker has pleaded guilty to charges of delay of mail by a postal employee after he was caught with a public storage unit filled with mail he never delivered.

Jason Delacruz, who worked as a city carrier assistant with the U.S. Postal Service at the Chesapeake Main Post Office in Chesapeake, Virginia, since June 2018, told authorities that he felt "pressured" and was unable to "make time" to complete his daily mail route, court documents said.

Delacruz said that beginning in November or December of 2018, he began to hide the leftover mail, until he eventually needed to rent a public storage unit for $49 per month for the "sole purpose of storing mail he could not deliver" in February 2019.

Delacruz told authorities that while he intended to deliver the mail that was stored in the storage unit, he fell behind and was never able to make up his scheduled deliveries. The missing mail was discovered when U.S. Post Office officials received a complaint about a postal service employee who was unloading mail into a public storage unit facility in Virginia Beach.

A witness took photos of Delacruz unloading the mail as well as a photo of Delacruz's license plate and submitted it to officials.

Agents from the United States Postal Service Office of Inspector General discovered nearly 5,000 piece of mail in the storage unit, with 97 pieces of first-class mail that included mail from the Department of Motor Vehicles, insurance companies, the IRS, bank statements and other tax return documents.

Another 115 pieces of pre-sorted and second-class mail, including magazines and other publications were also discovered. The rest was made up of mostly 4,700 other pieces of assorted advertisement mail.

Agents also discovered one undelivered package and six bundles of advertisement coupons from the company "RetailMeNot."

The Post Office eventually delivered all of the first-class mail, but the advertisement mail was discarded.

"The employee no longer works for the Postal Service," USPS public relations manager said" He resigned in 2019 and he worked for 14 months prior to his resignation."

Delacruz pleaded guilty to delay of mail matter by officer or employee. He's scheduled to be sentenced on February 12 in federal

[on the bay]

That's crazy isn't it?!

[Annabellethecat66]

Well there was a time when doing anything illegal with the mail was a Felony and you'd be jailed.

I have sent birthday cards with gift cards in them and they've been stolen.  It has happened quite often.

The postal workers told me to put the cards in a brown envelope.

Which I now do.  I send most family members birthday, congradulation, etc, cards always with gift cards.

Now every single card goes into those brown envelopes.

Hummm??? The cards now make it to the people on the address.

It gets expensive having to mail them that way, but at least I know they'll make it.

As I've said before.  Break the law.  Slap on the wrist....

Betcha even if this guy gets put in jail he'll be out in a few months.

[Sooner]

Of course we don't do anything. Why jail any criminals?  I'm sure it's not their fault. . . 

[proudlyfromNJ]

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@Annabellethecat66 wrote:

Well there was a time when doing anything illegal with the mail was a Felony and you'd be jailed.

I have sent birthday cards with gift cards in them and they've been stolen.  It has happened quite often.

The postal workers told me to put the cards in a brown envelope.

Which I now do.  I send most family members birthday, congradulation, etc, cards always with gift cards.

Now every single card goes into those brown envelopes.

Hummm??? The cards now make it to the people on the address.

It gets expensive having to mail them that way, but at least I know they'll make it.

As I've said before.  Break the law.  Slap on the wrist....

Betcha even if this guy gets put in jail he'll be out in a few months.

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Then why in the heck are the prisons so crowded? Nephew is fed prison guard. Place is crowded and a mess. They need to build more. Just like places for the homeless. I could go on and on but I won’t.

[GCR18]

You would think people not getting their mail would have triggered an investigation.  With people getting emails of daily mail, they know what's coming.

[DiAnne]

I have been lucky so far and I don't have a locked mailbox.  When I lived in California I had a slot in my front door for the mail.  I wish they would go back to that system.  

[SeaMaiden]

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@GCR18 wrote:

You would think people not getting their mail would have triggered an investigation.  With people getting emails of daily mail, they know what's coming.

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@GCR18  Yes!  The emails will help track down common links where the mail is missing when people report missing mail.

[happycat]

Its crazy.

My aunt had a vacant house beside her. It had been vacant for a few years. All of a sudden, she noticed the mailman would drop off stuff in that mail box. She walked over there one day, and it was several different peoples mail. It wasn't long after that, that he retired.

Pitiful.

[esmerelda]

Not the first time this has happened. Maybe paying to store it is new. Where I used to live a postal worker died and they found bags of undelivered mail in his attic.