Local postal worker pleads guilty to embezzling nearly $15,000

Former postal worker James K. Hubbard sold books of stamps and charged the correct amount, but only rang up the sale of single stamps — pocketing the difference, officials said.

Those actions led to Hubbard embezzling $14,600 from the Germantown and Farmersville post offices from January 2008 until December 2011, he admitted Tuesday in Dayton’s U.S. District Court.

The 49-year-old pleaded guilty by bill of information to one count of misappropriation of postal funds. The maximum penalties for that conviction are 10 years in prison, a $250,000 fine and three years of supervised release.

U.S. District Judge Walter Rice scheduled Hubbard’s sentencing for Oct. 27 and ordered a pre-sentence report. Federal prosecutors said they would not oppose probation for Hubbard, who also agreed to pay restitution.

He is one of three local U.S. Postal Service employees facing active federal cases of theft.

In May in a case unrelated to Hubbard’s, former Dayton postal worker Terrence P. Young pleaded guilty to delay or destruction of mail. He will be sentenced in September. Young admitted to stealing and using gift cards and having a stack of undelivered mail in his vehicle when he worked at a Dayton post office from 2010 until 2015, according to court documents.

In June, another former Dayton postal worker admitted to stealing and using gift cards from mail he was supposed to deliver. Charles Davis Jr. is scheduled for an arraignment and plea in August. “He had mishandled retail transactions at the window,” said Special Agent Scott Balfour of the postal service’s Office of the Inspector General.

Hubbard, a sales and service associate, “knowingly converted to his own use, money that came into his hands during the execution of his employment and service to the United Postal Service in a manner not authorized by law,” court documents alleged.

Hubbard said he is on probation for non-support in a state court. Rice said the federal conviction likely wouldn’t affect Hubbard’s status in that case.

In the Postal Service’s last half-year report to Congress from April 1 to Sept. 30, 2014, they reported 846 investigations of mail theft. Those led to 173 arrests, 129 indictments or bills of information, 186 convictions and 484 administrative actions.

If mail-carrier theft is suspected, residents can contact the United States Postal Service Office of the Inspector General at: www.uspsoig.gov or call (888) USPS-OIG.

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