A Catonsville letter carrier who worked for the postal service for more than two decades stole more than 20,000 pieces of mail, according to federal authorities.
Jeffrey L. Shipley is accused of pilfering checks and money orders. He is accused of filching passports and prescription medication. He is accused of pilfering credit cards and Mother’s Day cards. He is even accused of stealing furniture from the United States Postal Service.
Shipley was charged in federal court last week with one count each of mail theft and delaying the mail.
Shipley was hired in August 1993 and most recently worked Tuesday to Saturday out of a postal facility in Catonsville, according to court documents. He delivered mail to homes on Winters Lane, Old Frederick Road, Lincoln Park, Roberts Avenue, Shipley Avenue and Johnson Street.
The charges do not say when authorities believe Shipley began the thefts, but they started investigating him in February according to other court documents.
Investigators from the USPS Inspector General’s officer initiated their case after receiving a tip over an Internet hotline that Shipley was stealing bagfuls of mail as well as taking jewelry, Netflix movies and passports from the mail, according to court documents.
Catonsville postman accused in theft of 20K pieces of mail
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Captain Jack, let me tell you something. I’m a 29+ year letter carrier, president of my branch and have a route with 960 stops. I do not steal or mishandle mail period. Not the occasional misdelivery, but deliberate mishandling, like stealing pieces of mail, crushing packages, and dumping mail. My carriers for the most part are honest enough to not do shit like that. I will stipulate that a few slow pokes steal wages by doing half the work the rest of us do and get paid more for it, and that riles me to no end because if management tries to do anything I have to defend those jerks. My term is up at years’ end and I’m done forever being an officer. With two and a half years to go until retirement, I just want to be a letter carrier and not worry about everybody else.
In a workforce as large as the USPS there will be theft and other problems. But it seems fairly equally distributed between craft and management although management gets their graft in much larger sums and hide it in tons of worthless paperwork. Don’t lump every carrier into the thief category. That’s insulting and the last thing we need is that kind of false publicity.
I am so glad it was a postal employee and not some evil Staples employee…lets keep theft, malingering and sabotage in house! The US Mail is not for sale y’all !!
Nothing new! Nearly all steal time daily….