A California man has been sentenced to eighteen months, after being convicted on federal charges that he stole mail, including stimulus checks. The thirty-three-year-old had pleaded guilty to both Mail Theft and Possession of Stolen Mail. He faced up to five years in prison per count. 

The man had entered a guilty plea on the charge that he had “pried open at least 94 post office boxes with a flathead screwdriver and prybar at post offices in San Diego and Imperial Counties.” The mail he stole included both credit cards and $6,500 worth of Economic Impact Payments, which are the government term for stimulus checks. 

“Every American has the right to receive every piece of mail sent to them,” Acting U.S. Attorney Randy Grossman said of the case. The man was arrested when “hundreds of pieces of stolen mail” had been found in his possession. 

“When mail is stolen, particularly envelopes containing desperately needed income during a pandemic, the impact on victims can be devastating. When you see someone raiding a mailbox or notice suspicious activity involving the mail, please immediately report this to the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and local law enforcement,” Grossman said in the government’s press statement. “Our office will vigorously investigate and prosecute these matters with our law enforcement partners.”

“Postal inspectors work aggressively to combat mail theft,” Eric Shen, the acting inspector in charge of the Los Angeles Division, also said in the press statement. “In collaboration with U.S. Border Patrol Agents and the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, we were able to prevent countless others from being victimized by this individual, who could have caused even more financial damage and personal inconvenience.”

For as long as there have been stimulus checks, there have been occasional cases in which they have been stolen. 

Additionally, a pair of reports this month from Axios stated that as much as half of the unemployment funds distributed since the start of the pandemic may have been stolen, with a large chunk of that money ending up in the hands of international criminal gangs. 

However, doubts have been raised about those stories, noting that they are very thinly sourced, with the information coming from companies who are invested in selling fraud prevention products to the government. 

“This is all inference and conjecture,” communications advisor Dan Lavoie wrote on Twitter in response to the second Axios fraud piece. 

“If hundreds of billions of dollars were being stolen (rather than perhaps merely some shady applications) we should be able to find countless real-world examples. You have two (Tupac & Feinstein) . . . and one of them isn’t fraud.”

Stephen Silver, a technology writer for the National Interest, is a journalist, essayist and film critic, who is also a contributor to The Philadelphia Inquirer, Philly Voice, Philadelphia Weekly, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Living Life Fearless, Backstage magazine, Broad Street Review and Splice Today. The co-founder of the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle, Stephen lives in suburban Philadelphia with his wife and two sons. Follow him on Twitter at @StephenSilver.

Image: Reuters