2/5/16 – A former Evansville postal service employee has received three years of federal probation for stealing mail with prescription painkillers intended for military veterans.
Kevin R. Hicks, 55, appeared in U.S. District Court at Evansville on Thursday for sentencing. He pleaded guilty to three counts of mail theft in June.
The medication was intended for veterans and was being sent by the Veterans Administration. Hicks admitted to taking the medications for his own use.
Chief Judge Richard L. Young deviated from federal sentencing guidelines — which federal judges are allowed to do — to give Hicks probation. He said he did so partly because Hicks did not take them to sell and partly because he completed treatment for his pill addiction after his August 2014 arrest.
“I’ve given you a break here today on this,” Young said.
He said he was impressed at Hicks’ lack of criminal record and efforts toward recovery and that Hicks appeared to be “a hard working, good man” caught in the throes of addiction.
“I don’t see a lot of defendants like Mr. Hicks in court here. He is educated. He served in the Navy. He worked for the postal service approximately 30 years,” Young said. “How did he get here? Well, he was addicted to Lortabs (hydrocodone).” Read more
From previous reports:
Hicks, Manager (MDO) at the Evansville, Indiana Mail Processing and Distribution Facility (P&DF) estimated he stole drugs from the mail more than 30 times, carefully opening packages to remove just the hydrocodone– a prescription pain medication, intended for delivery to veterans who receive their Veterans Administration medication through the mail.
Once, years earlier, when he was postmaster in Oakland City, Indiana, Hicks said the VA had compensated a veteran whose prescription had been lost in the mail.
“So in my mind, I thought they would still be getting their medicine,” he said. “The pills were in bottles of 90 and at the end it had gotten to where I was taking 40 of them a day.”
At the time of his arrest, Hicks was a postal employee for 30 years.