When we look at other people’s jobs, we often feel as if we could do them. In fact, there is a standing joke that even a monkey could do those jobs, although that is demeaning, to say the least.
Perhaps some of us have even felt that way about postal carriers that work for the United States post office. Unless you’ve actually had one of those jobs, you can’t imagine the amount of pressure that goes along with it. Perhaps that will become more evident when you hear what happened with a postal worker named Jason Delacruz.
Delacruz was arrested and ended up pleading guilty to charges of delay of mail by a postal employee. It happened back in August 2019 and he is now waiting to be sentenced in February.
As a postal carrier in the community of Chesapeake, Virginia, you would think that he would be loving life. In reality, he said that he felt ‘pressured’ and couldn’t ‘make time’ to get his mail route finished. Court documents go on to show that he rented a public storage unit and was paying $49 a month. The reason? It was for “the sole purpose of storing mail he could not deliver.”
Delacruz claims that he began to hide mail in November or December 2018. He then started renting the storage unit in February 2019, court records show. When he wasn’t able to deliver mail on any given day, he would take it to the storage unit but eventually, he was caught in May 2019.
He claims that he always was going to deliver the mail in the storage unit but he fell so far behind that he couldn’t do it. According to court documents and his own testimony, no mail was ever destroyed.
When the matter was looked into by the United States Postal Service Office, agents found close to 5000 pieces of mail in the Virginia Beach storage unit. 97 pieces of first-class mail, including letters from the IRS, Department of Motor Vehicles, insurance companies, tax return documents, and bank statements were included.
There were 115 magazines and other publications. There was also an undelivered package in the unit. Most of the mail, which included more than 4700 pieces were advertisements.
After making the discovery, the first-class mail was delivered. The ads were outdated by that time so they were discarded.
“The employee no longer works for the Postal Service,” USPS public relations manager Dave Partenheimer said. “He resigned in 2019 and he worked for 14 months prior to his resignation.”
Delacruz is facing the possibility of a fine and may spend up to five years in prison.