A U.S. Postal Service employee and another man were indicted in a scheme to steal more than half-million dollars worth of stamps and sell them online, the Maryland U.S. Attorney’s Office announced.
Prosecutors said Marvin Foster, a 54-year-old window clerk at the Elkridge post office, and Kyle Mathias, 23, could spend up to five years in prison if convicted.
The indictment alleges that from June 2008 through March 2009, Foster walked out of work with “bricks” of 2,000 stamps valued at $840 each and “coils” of stamps valued at $42 each. Foster allegedly gave the stamps to Mathias through an account Mathias set up on eBay.
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The scheme resulted in the loss of more than $682,800 in stamps, prosecutors said.
“Anyone who buys stamps at a discount should be on notice of the risk that they are purchasing stolen property,” U.S. Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein said in a statement.
Federal agents uncovered the alleged scheme in November 2008 after law enforcement noticed that a quantity of unused 42-cent American Flag stamps were placed on the eBay for auction. The stamps were being offered for $900, $150 less than the retail price.
A postal inspector working undercover purchased the stamps. The package had a return address belonging to Mathias’ mother.
Federal agents shipped the stamps to the U.S. Postal Inspection Service Forensic Laboratory for analysis and the stamps were determined to be legitimate, not counterfeit, documents said.
Around the same times that agents were keeping surveillance on Kyle Mathias, the inspector general’s office was tipped off about a pattern of thefts in the Elkridge and Hanover post offices, prosecutors said. In December, authorities planted a hidden camera in the stock room in the Elkridge post office, which captured video footage of Foster swiping several bricks and placing them in a bag, charging documents said.
Federal agents planted a GPS tracking device on Foster’s 2006 Suburu Legacy, which they used to follow the postal worker to Mathias’ home in Joppa.
