Postal worker stole packages with weed inside — then made a hefty profit, feds say
A U.S. Postal Service employee made thousands of dollars on the side by stealing mailed packages of marijuana from the Sacramento Main Post Office in California where she worked, federal prosecutors said.
The woman, 54, stole 18 parcels from at least 10 people between October 2018 and February 2019 and brought them back to her home in West Sacramento, according to court documents.
She then sold the marijuana that was inside the packages and made at least $30,000 in cash, a sentencing memorandum filed July 25 in court says.
A federal judge in Sacramento sentenced her to five months in prison for theft of mail by a Postal Service employee and possession with intent to distribute marijuana on Aug. 1, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of California announced in an Aug. 1 news release.
As part of her sentencing, she must forfeit more than $125,000 in cash — the same amount found at her home when authorities executed a federal search warrant, prosecutors said.
During the search, multiple packages were found, including one with more than 3 pounds of marijuana, officials said.
William F. Portanova, the woman’s attorney, declined a request for comment from McClatchy News on Aug. 2. Although officials have publicly identified her, McClatchy news isn’t doing so because she’s not accused of a crime causing direct physical harm to another person.
How the packages were stolen
The woman was caught on surveillance footage removing packages from an area of the post office designated for parcels suspected of containing narcotics, the sentencing memo says.
Then, she’d hide the packages throughout the Royal Oaks facility in North Sacramento before retrieving them and bringing them to her home, according to the sentencing memo.
Her co-workers alerted Postal Service agents in Sept. 2018 after finding a large package of what potentially contained marijuana in a supply room, the Sacramento Bee previously reported.
Ahead of the woman’s sentencing, prosecutors asked the judge to sentence her to 10 months in prison, writing she harmed both USPS and the general public through “opportunistic drug-dealing,” the sentencing memo says.
In a sentencing memo filed on her behalf, Portanova wrote that his client, who had worked for the Postal Service for 30 years, is “deeply remorseful” and “makes no excuses for her past conduct.”
“Despite an unblemished three decades of service without a single disciplinary action or complaint, (she) made the terrible mistake of seeking to supplement her income by stealing packages from the post office where she was assigned,” the sentencing memo says.
Portanova wrote his client would “never again return before a criminal court” and requested a sentence of home detention instead of incarceration, according to the sentencing memo.
In commenting on her five-month sentence, U.S. Postal Service Office of Inspector General of the Western Pacific Area Field Office Kenneth Bulle said “Today’s sentencing underscores the value of the public’s trust in the USPS and the consequences that result when a USPS employee breaches that trust through theft.”
This story was originally published August 2, 2023 at 1:28 PM with the headline "Postal worker stole packages with weed inside — then made a hefty profit, feds say."
.jpg)