Postal Employee Pleads Guilty to Stealing Mail

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Tom Larson, Acting United States Attorney for the Western District of Missouri, announced that a U.S. Postal employee pleaded guilty in federal court today to stealing mail.

Terry G. Williams, 55, of Kansas City, Mo., waived his right to a grand jury and pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Beth Phillips to a federal information that charges him with theft of mail by a Postal Service employee.

Williams, a postal support employee at the Processing and Distribution Center in Kansas City, Mo., admitted that he stole such items as greeting cards, gift cards and Netflix DVDs between April 4, 2015, and April 26, 2016. Williams pulled those items from the trays of letter mail he was loading to be processed.

Federal agents watched Williams pull out colored envelopes from the trays and place them in his pockets and into a personal bag that was underneath his work station. When agents approached him at the end of his shift, he dropped the bag on the ground and ran away from the agents. Agents chased Williams, tackled him to the ground and handcuffed him.

Agents seized Williams’s bag, which contained 232 greeting cards. They also seized two gift cards from Williams. Inside the trunk of his vehicle, agents found 104 greeting cards, 34 Netflix DVD mailings and three gift cards.

Under federal statutes, Williams is subject to a sentence of up to five years in federal prison without parole. The maximum statutory sentence is prescribed by Congress and is provided here for informational purposes, as the sentencing of the defendant will be determined by the court based on the advisory sentencing guidelines and other statutory factors. A sentencing hearing will be scheduled after the completion of a presentence investigation by the United States Probation Office.

This case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Brent Venneman. It was investigated by the U.S. Postal Service, Office of Inspector General.