A former U.S. Postal Service employee who stole $1.6 million in U.S. Treasury checks was sentenced to 36 months in jail on Dec. 17, Department of Justice officials announced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Erick Vera-Garzon of Providence, Rhode Island, pleaded guilty on Sept. 23 to carrying out a scheme in which he stole Treasury checks from the mail, sold them on the street and deposited them in fraudulent bank accounts opened in the names of check recipients.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In September 2014, the USPS inspector general launched an investigation into the disappearance of Treasury checks addressed to recipients in Rhode Island and Massachusetts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Investigators soon discovered that the checks were handled by workers at the U.S. Mail Providence Processing and Distribution Center.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Providence Police Department also discovered that Vera-Garzon was selling the checks in Rhode Island and New York for 20 percent of their value and had opened bank accounts in recipients’ names across three states.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Officials said they seized 900 Treasury checks worth $1.6 million and stolen gift cards from Vera-Garzon, plus $165,000 in proceeds from the sale of checks when he was arrested on April 16.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Another former USPS employee who assisted in the scheme, Joan Manuel Mustafa, pleaded guilty to\u00a0conspiracy, theft of mail and theft of public money or property on Oct. 21. He will be sentenced on Jan. 8, 2016.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Following the jail sentence for conspiracy, theft of mail and theft of public money or property, Vera-Garzon will also serve two years of supervised release.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
USPS employee who stole $1.6 million in U.S. Treasury checks, sold some on the street.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":45970,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":68,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[15,68],"tags":[],"coauthors":[2714],"class_list":["post-15217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-management","category-leadership"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"EEC6D55KCNGRZLPSHATFS2N4LU","arc_canonical_url":"\/management\/leadership\/2015\/12\/18\/former-usps-employee-gets-3-years-for-1-6m-scheme\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n