Texas postal service contractors sentenced for stealing mail totaling $4 million
Two Lubbock postal contractors, who stole at least 8,000 pieces of mail that totaled more than $4 million in losses within a four-day period, were sentenced to a combined seven years and 10 months in prison Friday.
Joe Roy Rivas III, 22, and Jessica Lynn Solomon, 35, were charged with conspiracy to possess stolen mail, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Texas. The pair was indicted last October. Rivas pleaded guilty for a sentence of 57 months in federal prison, and two weeks later Solomon also pleaded guilty to the same charges for 37 months.
“The U.S. Postal Inspection Service takes any report of mail theft seriously and will conduct an aggressive investigation,” said Thomas Noyes, postal inspector in charge of the Fort Worth Division, in the news release from the Department of Justice. “An egregious element of this case was the discovery of these few contractors who chose to violate their position of trust. This action brought to bear a swift and comprehensive response by both Postal Inspectors and our law enforcement partners aimed at bringing the criminal activity to an end.”
Rivas and Solomon were co-workers at Cargo Force Inc., which works with the postal service to load mail on flights departing from and arriving at Lubbock International Airport. They admitted that they began stealing mail when they first started their employment and continued to do so for two years before they were caught, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.
“During their shifts, they sifted through mail looking for items containing merchandise, cash, gift cards, checks, and money orders,” the news release continued. “The 8,000 pieces of stolen mail law enforcement recovered from the Rivas and Solomon was post-marked within a four-day period. Law enforcement found the staggering heap of stolen mail stuffed into 55-gallon trash bags and stockpiled inside a residence the two shared in Slaton, Texas.”
Further investigation found that the two regularly “washed” checks by removing the name of who the money was designated for and replacing it with another. The pair also stole and sold cell phones that were removed from mail.
“Prosecutors highlighted some of the mail that had been kept from its proper recipients: a multitude of payments to entities such as mortgage bankers; over 40 pieces of mail related to federal court proceedings; more than 50 letters from local college admissions offices to applicants; and numerous greeting cards designed to brighten someone’s day,” the news release said.
“The addresses and addressors included churches, charitable organizations, prison ministries, local judicial and law enforcement entities, financial institutions, trust companies, banks, lenders, local school districts, hospitals, hospices, pharmaceutical companies, medical equipment companies, and funeral homes.”
The $4 million worth of mail stolen by Soloman and Rivas that was seized by law enforcement is the largest recovery of stolen mail in North Texas history.
This story was originally published April 22, 2022 at 2:02 PM.
