BIRMINGHAM, Ala.—Three Alabama residents have been indicted in a federal investigation that found letter carrier illegally sold keys that allowed others to open and pilfer Birmingham-area mailboxes.
The indictment filed Thursday in federal court in Birmingham accuses Keaundria Janae Gresham, 30, of Pleasant Grove, a letter carrier at a local post office, of selling two keys for $3,000 each to Derrell Allen Matthews, 25, of Birmingham.
What the U.S. Postal Service calls “arrow keys” open mail collection boxes. It’s illegal for someone who doesn’t work for the post office to have them.
U.S. Postal Inspector Montaleto Barber said in a sworn statement on April 4 that people who steal mail often then try to illegally cash checks that they find. Barber said thieves have hit boxes outside multiple post offices, including in Hoover and Birmingham, with postal inspectors tracking down Matthews based on surveillance videos of a car registered to him. When they raised Matthews’ house in October, Barber said they found not only an arrow key, but stolen mail, stolen checks and counterfeit checks….