Posted on 01/22/2015 12:24:20 PM PST by DogByte6RER
Former U.S. postal worker who says he got lazy sentenced
Its long been said that mail carriers deliver through snow, rain, heat and gloom of night.
Maybe thats because if they fail to do the job right, they could end up charged with a federal crime.
A now-former U.S. Postal Service worker from Eugene learned that the hard way after police recovered nearly 1,000 pieces of undelivered mail from two bins on his front porch in July.
The bins contained primarily merchant advertisements (or junk mail), but included 27 voter ballots from Mays primary election and more than 200 items of first-class and standard mail.
Federal prosecutors charged the man, Alex Douglas Douma, with the crime of mail obstruction.
He pleaded guilty to the misdemeanor on Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Eugene and was sentenced to a year of probation. Douma also must pay a $500 fine.
Douma, who worked at a post office in Eugene, told investigators who questioned him last summer that he just got lazy and had failed to make his rounds on multiple occasions between late April and early July, according to court documents.
Douma apologized in court and told U.S. Magistrate Judge Thomas Coffin that he set aside the mail because he had felt pressured for time while working in a job that required him to sort, scan and deliver mail.
I wasnt intending on keeping the mail, Douma, 27, told Coffin.
Prosecutor William Bud Fitzgerald basically confirmed that assertion, telling Coffin that Douma had committed a crime of failing to do something he should have done.
John Masters, an agent with the U.S. Postal Service Office of Inspector General, said his agency considers a crime such as Doumas to be a very serious matter.
Mr. Douma was required to protect the sanctity and security of U.S. mail entrusted to him, Masters said.
Agents with Masters office worked with local authorities to investigate the case. Masters, citing federal law and agency policy, declined to say whether Douma had been fired in connection with the undelivered mail.
While Douma no longer works for the Postal Service, he has found a new job. His attorney, Clayton Tullos of Eugene, said after Doumas court appearance that given the facts, we feel this was an appropriate resolution of the criminal case.
The charge of mail obstruction carries a maximum prison sentence of six months upon conviction. Douma was not jailed
Its a crime for federal workers to be lazy and not do their jobs????
Discarded in two bins on his front porch? Not the highest-wattage light bulb in the Post Office, one would assume.
In the Showtime TV series “Weeds”, Richard Dreyfuss played a mailman who used his entire house to store mail he didn’t deliver.
It is in their very best interest to discard it ASAP. These people would not make master criminals.
And how many peoples lives were disrupted when mail they were waiting for never arrived?
That must have been what happened to that check I was waiting for from the Nigerian king who I befriended on email...
What? You too!?
DANG!
Double DANG!
I’ve decided my post lady or her husband love Cabela’s. I’ve never received my Cabela’s Bucks (even though their customer service can give me the date they were mailed) and I stopped receiving Cabela’s coupons since I moved to this house. I still get the monthly flyer, just not the savings coupons.
She won’t get out of her truck and honks when she has a package. Last summer she left my brand new Oakley glasses sitting in a box ON TOP of my mailbox. It sat there from 11 AM till about 6 PM, when I pulled up to my driveway. It’s a good thing I’m on a Cul-de-sac.
BTW, I’m gonna propose a new “rule” for Free Republic, namely that at least one picture of Newman MUST be posted on any thread about the U.S. Post Office.
This is one of many reasons I have all my mail sent to a mail stop store.
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