Men robbed postal workers for collection box keys and stole $1.5M in checks, feds say
A postal worker was delivering mail on a Sunday just before 11 a.m. in a small Maryland town of roughly 700 residents when a man reportedly approached her truck.
“Give me your key,” he told her, according to federal court filings.
When she didn’t answer, prosecutors said the man grabbed her arm and issued the demand a second time.
“Give me the f---ing key, now.”
Prosecutors said the key he wanted is what’s known as an arrow key, which mail carriers use to access collection boxes. The postal worker reportedly dropped the key on the ground before the man snatched it and ran.
That man was later identified as 38-year-old Michael Deandre Packer, of Washington, D.C., prosecutors said. Packer is accused of raiding collection boxes with 29-year-old Rodney Jerrod Jefferson and stealing more than 1,000 checks worth $1.5 million over 15 months in 2018 and 2019.
Jefferson was sentenced on Monday, Nov. 15, to seven and a half years in prison and ordered to pay $35,100 in restitution. A judge previously sentenced Packer to more than four years in federal prison.
“(The defendants’) fraud scheme was grounded upon layer after layer of theft,” prosecutors said in sentencing documents. “... In so doing, they sparked fear among the individuals they victimized, threatened a loss of over $1.5 million, and undermined the public trust in the U.S. Postal Service.”
Defense attorneys representing Jefferson and Packer did not immediately respond to McClatchy News’ request for comment.
The pair were charged by criminal complaint in August 2020, court documents show. According to the affidavit accompanying the charges, the first robbery of a postal carrier occurred in Upper Marlboro, Maryland, on Oct. 14, 2018.
Three months later, the mail carrier identified Packer in a lineup of photos, telling investigators she was “struck with fear” when she saw his face again.
Investigators traced the robbery to Packer after the mail carrier reported seeing him sitting in a Black Infiniti coupe in the parking lot before he approached her truck. According to court filings, law enforcement tracked where the Infiniti was sold and received paperwork showing the car was purchased with a bad check the day before the robbery. The photograph on the driver’s license filed with the paperwork was of Packer, and the address was his with one number changed.
At least three more postal workers were reportedly robbed of their arrow keys between Halloween 2018 and Jan. 31, 2019 — including an incident just after 10 a.m. in which prosecutors said Jefferson, clad in a ski mask, tore six keys from a worker’s belt outside a collection box in Washington, D.C.
In the intervening months, prosecutors said, Packer and Jefferson were seen on surveillance footage raiding collection boxes and cashing fraudulent checks at various banks.
Packer was stopped in December 2018 while driving a stolen Audi, prosecutors said. Inside, law enforcement reportedly found 119 checks totaling $102,260 and two stolen arrow keys. Investigators then searched his home in Washington, D.C., on April 24, 2019, and found the $1.5 million in stolen checks as well as another stolen arrow key and fake driver’s licenses and debit cards.
Jefferson was pulled over in June 2019 in a stolen Cadillac and tried to run, prosecutors said. Investigators reportedly found 160 stolen personal checks inside the car “in various stages of alteration.”
The government said the pair ultimately succeeded in cashing more than $35,000 in stolen checks.
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