A mail carrier on the Kitsap Peninsula just didn’t feel like doing all that running around:
According to court documents, the Postal Service began investigating Richard Farrell after other employees found a load of letters he was to deliver dumped in a recycling bin.
Investigators followed Farrell on a route, watching as he spent his day at a tavern before taking the mail to his home and burning it in a fire pit. A search of Farrell’s residence uncovered nearly 8,000 letters.
All those love letters lost, sad people thinking they weren’t remembered on their birthday, late fees for bills not received, never admired school photos… Farrell was sentenced only to probation, 120 hours of community service, and a $25 fine.
Via Seattlepi.com.
Belfair is technically on the Kitsap Peninsula, not the Olympic Peninsula. Boom!
What a p.o.s.
@Dr. Tchock: Noted and changed.
Newman!
dear god, not my bills and junk mail!
Mail carrier actually seems like the most awesomest unskilled labor job on the face of the Earth to me. What an asshole.
It seems like a version of this story pops up every decade or so. I think given the number of mail carriers there must be out there one a decade getting caught not doing their job probably isn’t an unfair number given human nature.
yeah, its like a kid ditching his papers on paper route day
Probation and $25 fine? So much for the old “tampering with mail is a federal offense” myth…
#4 FTW!!!
You guys forgot the Paychecks that will force people to overdraft or eat cat food.
What’s a love letter?
The penalty for these crimes is a joke — 120 hours of community service and a $25 fine — shows the system is not working in this jurisdiction. Too bad the Postal Service didn’t pursue charges in Federal Court; I bet those judges would’ve taken this a little more seriously.
Alright alright alright. You go ahead. You go ahead, you keep it secret. But you remember this! When you control the mail, you control…information.
@9 and 13,
I’ve seen it mentioned in articles about postal workers’ stealing mail that it’s virtually impossible to fire them, even after they’ve committed thousands of federal offenses. (God bless the civil service.) So the U.S. attorneys cut their losses by letting the mail carriers walk as long as they agree to quit.
Through rain! Through snow! Through…. oh fuck it.
This guy should be given a bonus.
I live in a large apartment complex (hundreds of residents).
At each of the two mailbox kiosks they placed a trash can nearby so people can dump all the junk mail as they receive it.
It’s inevitably half full or more…
Give this jerk the death penalty!
I just got back from the PO where the guy at the counter saved me $40 on my shipping. He didn’t have to, it would have been less work if he just let me hand over all my boxes the way they were, but he pointed out an easy way for me to save a bunch of cash.
For every one letter burner there are about 150,000 people who do an awesome job and take it seriously.
I do a lot of banking by mail, so I’d be pissed at this guy. I can’t believe he got such a light sentence.
My mail carrier on the other hand is a great guy, always working hard and keeping things moving.
He totally got the idea from watching Weeds.
15, he was a contract employee. I don’t think that’s civil service ( in recent years, the USPS has been cutting civil service positions pretty drastically in an effort to save money). Irregardless, he was indeed fired when it was discovered, and prosecuted in federal court.
But something about this didn’t smell right to me, so I googled the guy. According to the Kitsap Sun, he was only destroying advertising circulars (although they did find a few hoarded first class mailings as well). Because of that, and because he came clean, he got a lenient sentence.
Shouldn’t have done it of course, but he would have saved me a step. The first thing I do when I bring in the mail is throw out the ads. If I don’t, Mr. Vel-DuRay tends to collect them.
The Kitsap Sun article can be found at http://www.kitsapsun.com/news/2011/jan/2…
Some postman
Is drinking
And burning LOVE letters
Maybe he got the idea from the Presidents?
@23: Yes!
At least he recycles.
My mail carrier, a man, is so lazy he has his wife and child deliver the mail. The wife drives the truck and the child puts the mail in the box. The child is so young her arms can’t shut some of the mailbox doors, this is how I found this out. Mail carriers have to undergo criminal and other background checks, unless they just give the mail to someone else to deliver.
Should I report the guy?!! I reported him once and no change. I’m so sick of wet and damaged mail. He’s probably working a second job while getting paid to deliver mail. His wife probably has a record and can’t get the job legally.
You can laugh about the guy burning the mail, but disabled and elderly people who had social security checks in there would be going hungry, they can hardly live on what they get anyway, and people subscribing to by-mail dvd rentals and stuff might get kinda peeved when they are charged for the rentals that were burned. I think the guy should be sentenced to a hard labor prison camp for 20 years. When we settle for this level of government service, this is all we should expect. One government worker screwing up is too much in my opinion. I don’t play percentages. Screw the incompetent lazy pos.