Man caught with 1,000 checks worth $2.6 million he stole from mail in Texas, feds say

A Texas man is accused of stealing $2.6 million in checks from the mail — and now he’s going to prison, according to federal officials.

Rhett Dean Stringer, a 44-year-old Houston resident, was caught with more than 1,000 stolen checks in his possession, according to an April 1 news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Southern District of Texas.

Though the checks were valued at $2.6 million in total, Stringer had only cashed $8,000 worth at the time of his arrest, officials said.

It’s not the first time he’s done this, authorities said.

“Law enforcement arrested Stringer on three different occasions. Each time, he was found in possession of checks that were stolen from the mail,” officials said. He’s also been found with fake ID cards and credit cards containing the personal information of other people.

McClatchy News reached out to an attorney representing Stringer but didn’t immediately receive a response.

Stringer pleaded guilty on Feb. 15, 2022, and now has been sentenced by a federal judge to 105 months, nearly nine years, in prison.

“One hundred and five months in a federal prison is wholly appropriate for the thousand times he decided to steal from the mail, violating an important and sacred trust, one as old as America — a trust in the U.S. mails,” U.S. Attorney Alamdar S. Hamdani said.