It’s my opinion mail thefts especially committed by postal carriers make the human race shake their heads in total disgust and give them reason to wonder, “Who can be trusted?” Years ago there was never a mention of a postal carrier being accused of allegedly stealing mail…this is something that has cropped up in the past few years. People totally trusted and believed in their postal carriers and would have never given a thought of them ever stealing mail.
In an AOL.Com article I read today a postal carrier, Jeffrey L. Shipley, living in the Catonsville, a western suburb of the Baltimore area, evidently didn’t have any shame whatsoever about taking 20,000 pieces of mail during his 20-year career of being a mail carrier, according to a report by the Baltimore Sun.
Shipley has failed to deliver, embezzled and stole not only junk mail, but letters, cards, magazines, and Netflix videos, according to prosecutors. He is facing a count of mail theft and in delaying of each piece of mail for delivery. A person can be faced with a fine and/or up to five-year imprisonment for “a single account;” and this doesn’t take into account of any separate state charges, according to Cornell University Law School’s Legal Information Institute.
Not only is there a jump in mail thefts of delivered mail but there’s also a jump in the thefts of outgoing mail too from homes in Montgomery County, according to a WRC-TV report. The state is having problems with mail thefts…thieves are also looking to get their hands on checks and to convert them to cash.
Shipley’s mail theft must have begun when he began to work for the U.S. Postal Service in 1993 because Catonsville is located in Baltimore County and these alleged crimes are not just recent, Shipley would have had to steal an average of 1,000 pieces of mail, or about three pieces per day from his route in order to accumulate the total number pieces of mail he was alleged to have taken since he began his work date.
The majority of mail Shipley is charged with taking may have had significant value connected to them. There were checks; jewelry, DVD’s, gift cards, and passports, missing according to the Sun. Postal carriers top union pay rate are $58,000 per year.
In a USA Today report, when it comes to mail theft, others have been grander in their activity. William Morse of Dawson Springs, KY was sentenced in April 2014 to six months in prison, six months home detention, and $14,808 in restitution for allegedly stealing a total of 44,900 pieces of mail.
An anonymous telephone tip began the investigation in February 2014; in addition to a confidential informant reportedly “had seen large quantities of opened and unopened U.S. Mail that was not addressed to Shipley,” and providing pictures and 23 pieces of the mail was not addressed to him, according to a report from Special Agent Steven M. Mason of the Postal Service Inspector General’s office. A list of allegedly stolen items ran nine pages.
Shipley’s own webpage is suggestive that he was an unhappy man. He wrote short stories which were published in small horror publications, creating also his own venture, “Unpopular Publications;” and he’d also give talks to other writers.
In my opinion it’s hard to believe a postal carrier could carry and deliver mail for a 20-year period without ever being caught. Wouldn’t you think a higher postal officer would have noticed “all the reports of missing mail in this particular delivery route” and became suspicious of the particular mail carrier or carriers? This would have been the first thing for a postal officer to follow-up on in my opinion…what do you think?
Barbara Kasey Smith is the writer of this article based on a news report on AOL.Com.
Source:
AOL.Com