United States Attorney
Northern District of Texas

1100 Commerce St., 3rd Fl.
Dallas, Texas 75242-1699

Telephone (214) 659-8600
Fax (214) 767-0978

FORMER POSTAL EMPLOYEE SENTENCED
TO 30 MONTHS IN FEDERAL PRISON WITHOUT PAROLE

Joseph Charles Urso Admitted Stealing More Than $580,000 in Postal Funds

A former employee of the United States Postal Service was sentenced this afternoon by the Honorable Jane J. Boyle, United States District Judge, to 30 months imprisonment and ordered to pay $580,000 in restitution, announced United States Attorney Richard B. Roper. Joseph Charles Urso, 63, a resident of Dallas, pled guilty in December to a one-count information that charged him with misappropriation of postal funds. Judge Boyle ordered that Urso surrender to the Bureau of Prisons by June 22, 2006.

Urso worked as a self-service postal center (SSPC) technician for the U.S. Postal Service. As an SSPC technician Urso regularly serviced postal vending machines at various postal stations on a particular route in Dallas. He was accountable for a specific amount of postal funds, including both stamp stock and cash received through vending sales of stamp stock. While this accountability amount varied from time to time, Urso was always individually responsible to personally account for all funds entrusted to his care and custody.

Urso admitted that for several years, beginning in 1992, he embezzled funds from the U.S. Postal Service by stealing funds collected from various stamp vending machines on his route. Rather than deposit these postal funds as required, Urso simply stole them. To cover up his embezzlement, Urso used postal forms to falsely and fraudulently under report or understate his total outstanding dollar amount of SSPC accountability. To successfully conceal his ongoing embezzlement, Urso had to repeatedly under report the dollar amounts listed on his postal accountability forms.

On September 26, 2005, postal management personnel conducted an emergency count of the stamp stock and cash of Urso’s accountability and determined Urso to be $95,863.83 short in his claimed accountability. In other words, this count revealed that Urso had previously falsely inflated the amount of Urso’s “on hand” stamp stock and cash.

From 1992 through September 19, 2005, the total amount of postal service funds stolen by Urso was $580,363.83.

United States Attorney Roper praised the investigative efforts of the Office of the Inspector General of the United States Postal Service. Assistant United States Attorney David L. Jarvis prosecuted the case.

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