A mailman in Queens is being accused of throwing away dozens of pieces of mail and Christmas packages instead of delivering them, all because the high amount of mail “overwhelmed” him, court documents say.
Newly hired mailman, Daniel Darby, 25, claimed he was “overwhelmed” by the amount of mail he was expected to deliver, and now he is accused of buying three large garbage bags and filling them with Christmas presents and other mail and throwing them all in the garbage.
Court documents charge that Darby threw the garbage bags filled with mail into a residential dumpster early in December. The bags of mail were later discovered in the trash can before they were picked up by garbage men.
That isn’t all—Darby is also accused of opening many of the packages to “see what was in them” before throwing them away.
Darby was arraigned on charges of unlawfully delaying and destroying the mail on December 22.
A second New York postman was also arrested and accused of theft of mail this month.
Brooklyn postman James Hayden stands accused of stealing gift cards that he intercepted in the mail.
Hayden was nabbed after a woman in Florida reported that she never received a $100 gift card and, after providing authorities with the serial numbers, the card was tracked to purchases made by Hayden.
When arrested, authorities found Hayden in possession of dozens of stolen gift cards.
Both postmen could face up to five years in prison and each could be assessed a $250,000 fine.
This is far from the first time a mailman was accused of throwing away mail instead of delivering it.
In September, a mailman in Philadelphia was arrested for trashing mail instead of delivering it. Only a few months earlier, a mail carrier in Cincinnati was similarly accused of tossing undelivered mail in a dumpster behind a school. And both those incidents were preceded by a postman in Connecticut, with only a year on the job, also caught throwing mail in dumpsters instead of delivering it.
One of the worst recent cases of mail dumping occurred in Kentucky where a mailman was accused of trashing over 20,000 pieces of mail. Mail carrier David Thompson, 54, told the courts that his drinking problem was the root cause of his actions.
Unfortunately, cases like this occur every single year, as any Google search shows. Still, the U.S. Post Office employs over 486,000 full-time employees and another 130,000 part-time employees. The USPS processes about 155.4 billion pieces of mail a year and handles 40 percent of the world’s mail by volume.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston, or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com.
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