Small Town Postmaster Pleads Guilty to Stealing Over $50,000

Added: 2026-06-01

[00:00:00]Welcome once again to Leato's Law.

[00:00:02]Here's Steve Leato.

[00:00:03]>> I had the stories not so long ago about tax payments disappearing from the mail.

[00:00:08]People mailing in their property tax payments and they weren't getting to where they're supposed to go. The checks are being misouted and then cashed elsewhere by people that weren't supposed to be doing that. And it appeared that there might have been a problem somewhere in the postal service.

[00:00:22]And so Ed says, "Steve, check this out.

[00:00:24]On a similar note, former USPS postmaster pleads guilty to theft.

[00:00:30]Pleads guilty. This is directly from a press release by the US attorney's office. A former US Postal Service employee pleaded guilty to using her position as postmaster to steal tens of thousands of dollars in government funds. According to court documents, she pleaded guilty to one count of theft by government employees. She's from Witchah. She previously worked as a postmaster for a post office in Scott City, Kansas. Between January 23 and February 25, they say she embezzled approximately $57,000.

[00:01:02]I don't know how big Scott City is. I just had a conversation with a good friend of mine, Tom, about post offices around the state of Michigan. And uh it's a hobby of his to go visit them and take photographs. And uh I've been in quite a few of them myself, including some very small ones uh and also some larger ones. So um I don't know how big Scott City is, though. An audit revealed she stole approximately $10,600 in cash payments from customers and then issued herself approximately $3,700 in money orders. They say she also embezzled approximately $3,400 that customers paid for their post office boxes. Now, I'm not that up on all of the workings of the post office, but I'd have to assume that they have some kind of accounting procedures in place to track money coming in and and services going out.

[00:01:57]So, I'm surprised that she did this, assuming she wouldn't get caught. Some customers made regular check payments for permits or mass mailings. They say she accepted the checks and provided the services to customers, but she did not log the receipts into the post office records. And the post office cannot account for checks that total $16,000 issued by the city of Scott, for instance, $5,800 in checks issued by the Scott County, and $17,000 in checks issued by a local newspaper. So presumably those checks were made out to the postal service, postmaster, whatever it might be, and somehow they got cash but didn't wind up in the coffers of the post office, which makes you wonder how that happened. So as postmaster, and this is a quote here, as postmaster, she likely thought her position would allow her to continue to fill her pockets with money that didn't belong to her without getting caught or facing any consequences. That's a US attorney speaking.

[00:03:03]Her behavior reminds us of why audits and other forms of government oversight of financial records are necessary. This guilty plea represents the hard work and dedication by the postal service I special agents working with the US attorney's office to bring charges on this financial fraud investigation.

[00:03:21]That's a special agent in charge speaking. Uh the OIG along with our law enforcement partners remain committed to safeguarding the US mail and ensuring the accountability and integrity of US Postal Service employees. The Postal Service Office of Inspector General is investigating the case and an assistant US attorney was prosecuting the case, but she has pleaded guilty and presumably that's the end of it. But again, let's back up and say that you're working at the post office.

[00:03:51]Hypothetically, you're working at the post office. Somebody comes in and hands you a check and the check is made up the postmaster.

[00:04:01]How does that check get cashed by anybody other than the postmaster or the US government? And so the check gets cashed that creates a paper trail. Um, and so what I'm curious about is was this really the most difficult crime these people have ever investigated? It couldn't be. It couldn't be. Now, cash payments are always iffy, are always iffy, depending on what the business is. So, imagine that you're a cashier at a gas station that's open 24 hours a day, and people come and go, come and go, and they buy all kinds of stuff, and sometimes they use a card, sometimes they use cash, sometimes they they they reach in their pockets and pull out a handful of pennies, dump them on the counter. Ask me how I know. And um it's possible for somebody in a situation like that where somebody walks up and they and they and they they're holding something that cost $5 and they flip you a five and they walk out.

[00:05:02]It's quite possible for that person behind the counter to take that five, stick it in their pocket and no one might ever notice the missing money. But number one, it's a small amount. Number two, there's a lot of small transactions taking place. and for one transaction to fall off the truck, it's not that big of a deal. But in a place like the post office, they're not selling that many different kinds of things, right?

[00:05:29]They're selling stamps, they're selling postage where I, for instance, I I've I sell a lot of books to viewers. So, somebody buys a copy of my book, say Chrysler's Turbine Car, Rise and Fall Detroit's Coolest Creation, Expanded Edition, and I I I package it up after I sign it and I address it to somebody. I take it to the post office and I know the postmaster there's a good friend of mine now. And I I go, "Hey, got another book for you. Media Mail." And he takes it and he weighs it. He types in the address and then he says, "Here's how much it's going to be." And I I pay with a card. I could pay with cash if I wanted to. I pay with a card. But I'm assuming that their system tracks the fact that four or five dollars of postage just went out of the system, but it was compensated for by that much money coming into the system. And so I guess if somebody walked in and said, "I want to renew my post office box." And those renew I think every six months, but you can renew them for longer if you want to. But but it's every six months is the minimum, I think. on post office box 168 for instance and um if somebody were to walk in and go how much is that and they said it's a couple hundred bucks if the person flipped them a couple hundred bucks in cash and said thank you very much and walked out that cash might be an issue I don't know what paperwork gets created to indicate that a box is being used but presumably somebody somewhere does track that because they're talking about audits they conduct and so presumably they can figure out how many of these boxes are being used and were they all paid for and are there records for them all being paid. And if not, there's going to be a problem. And so the weird part about this story is the money adds up to $57,000 and they're saying that 10,000 of it was cash. Also, she cut money orders to herself for $3,700.

[00:07:29]And I would likewise assume that if you're issuing a money order, that's $3,700 out. There should be $3,700 coming in. You'd think. And they also say that she embezzled money taken for the post office boxes, but they also can't account for checks that were issued by the city and the county and a local newspaper in the amounts of $16,000, $5,000, and $17,000. and they're making it sound like that was not one check each.

[00:08:00]So, who's cashing those checks? Where are they being cashed? And again, wasn't that paper trail quite obvious once somebody bothered to look at it? So, I I understand there are criminal masterminds out there. And I also understand that there's the exact opposite of that, whichever that might be. Trying to be nice here. I suspect this woman here was not a criminal mastermind. So, one thing I've learned, and I remember this from long before I was an attorney, is you don't want to do bad things. You don't want to commit crimes, but you certainly don't want to mess with the feds because the feds will come down on you like a ton of bricks. And the post office and the postal service is one of those things that most people know.

[00:08:52]They've got all kinds of laws protecting them. And somebody who works at the post office really ought to know that. So I don't have a lot of sympathy here. She pleaded guilty. So it's not like I'm condemning her for something that she's going to fight cuz she ain't fighting anymore. So there you go, Ed. Thanks for sending that. But from the US AG's office directly, former postmaster pleads guilty to theft. And the amount that they say that they think she stole was at least $57,000.

[00:09:20]Questions or comments, put them below.

[00:09:21]Let's talk to you later. Bye-bye.

[00:09:23]>> Thank you for watching Leato's Law.

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