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A United States Postal Service (USPS) supervisor was arrested Thursday after allegedly stealing more than 20 checks, totaling over $281,000.
Joivian Tjuana Hayes, a worker at the Costa Mesa Post Office in California, allegedly stole numerous checks, including one for more than $114,000 and allegedly deposited them into her account, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California.
Postal Service worker accused of swiping cash, coins and $281,000 worth of checks from the mail https://t.co/ZacumYgAmO
— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) December 20, 2024
Officials said the checks contained forged signatures and surveillance footage allegedly caught the 36-year-old depositing the checks at ATM machines scattered throughout the cities of Costa Mesa, Compton, and Fountain Valley. Hayes allegedly began depositing the checks in July 2024.
The post officer supervisor is also accused of stealing “tens of thousands of dollars in currency and gold coins” from mail that went through the Costa Mesa Post Office, the attorney’s office said.
Federal agents searched Hayes’ Compton residence and her 2023 BMW vehicle Thursday.
Hayes faces one count of bank fraud, for which she could face a maximum of 30 years in federal prison in convicted, officials said.
In November 2023, a USPS employee and two other individuals were arrested after stealing over $24 million in checks from the mail, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Western District of North Carolina. (RELATED: US Postal Worker Arrested After Allegedly Stealing $24 Million In Checks).
Donnell Gardner, 27, worked alongside his postal worker girlfriend and another woman to steal checks from the post office and later sell them online. In July, the three were sentenced to four and a half years in federal prison, according to The Charlotte Observer.
The trio stole over $12 million in stolen checks and more than $8 million in stolen U.S. Treasury checks from April to July 2023. They later sold them on Telegram where prosecutors had alleged they “obtained hundreds of thousands of dollars in criminal proceeds of the mail theft scheme.”
The judge in the case also ordered the three to pay over $100,000 in restitution.
“A lot of people think this is a victimless crime, but there were folks waiting for government bills, businesses thinking they’d paid their bills to vendors,” U.S. District Judge Kenneth Bell said, per The Charlotte Observer. “The ripple effect is a lot.”
