And the Georgia workers aren't alone. Between April and September of this year, 171 Postal Service employees were arrested for theft, willful delay or destruction of mail, according to a new report by the USPS inspector general. The Service has about 546,000 employees.
"We have taken two corrupt postal workers, including a supervisor, off the streets who were responsible for stealing thousands of checks worth over $3 million," U.S. Attorney Sally Quillian Yates in Atlanta said. "We will continue to target these theft rings, both those on the inside and their network of check cashers, to address this serious problem.”
Gerald Eason, 47, pled guilty to stealing more than 1,300 checks while working at the postal facility. His accomplice, mail handler Deborah Fambro-Echols, 49, has also pled guilty. The two employees pled guilty to conspiracy and theft of government money. Eason pleaded guilty to several other charges including possession of stolen Treasury checks. There's a wide range of jail time they could be serving, though. Each charge carries anywhere from five to 30 years in prison.
Investigators became aware there was a problem in December 2010, USPS Office of Inspector General spokeswoman Agapi Doulaveris said. Federal agents watched and investigated Eason and his accomplices before they were arrested in early March, Doulaveris said.
"Eason and Fambro-Echols reflect just a very small percentage of employees who failed to uphold the trust and integrity placed in them," said Paul Bowman, the U.S. Postal Service Office of Inspector General's special agent in charge. "The majority of Postal Service employees are honest, hardworking, and committed to providing the timely and reliable service that customers expect and deserve."
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