Post office supervisor admits stealing more than $300,000 in checks, valuables

SANTA ANA, Calif. (CN) — A U.S. Postal Service supervisor admitted she stole more than $300,000 in checks, gold and collectable currency, which she intercepted at a Southern California post office last year.

Joivian Tjuana Hayes, 36, pleaded guilty Friday to one count of theft of mail matter by a Postal Service employee and one count of unlawful transfer, possession, and use of means of identification, according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles.

Hayes faces as long as 20 years in prison, five years on the theft count and 15 on the unlawful transfer count, at her sentencing set for May 23 before U.S. District Judge John Holcomb in Santa Ana, California.

According to an affidavit by a special agent with the Postal Service’s Office of Inspector General, Hayes stole 20 checks worth more than $280,000, between July 16 and Oct. 4 at the Costa Mesa, California, post office where she worked as a customer service supervisor.

She forged the payees’ names and signatures on the back of the checks and put her own name on the endorsement line, and deposited the checks in three different bank accounts.

The Navy Federal Credit Union, where Hayes had an account and where she deposited nine of the checks, alerted the Postal Service to what looked like suspicious deposits. The special agent investigating the deposits noted that most were made using a mobile banking app but that Hayes also used a credit union ATM to deposit a $114,234 check while wearing a blue T-shirt with the USPS logo.

When Hayes was arrested in December, she admitted that she had stolen multiple checks from the Costa Mesa post office. According to her plea agreement, she initially said that she had only stolen some of the pieces of mail from the “return to sender” mail, but then confessed that she had also stolen checks from incoming mail that was processed through the post office, as well as from mail inside P.O. boxes there.

And when federal investigators searched Hayes’ residence in Compton, California, they found multiple gold coins and bills of U.S. currency that had been sent by registered mail, which she had also stolen from the Costa Mesa post office. These included a $10 Confederate States of America bill, an 1899 $5 silver certificate, and a $5 gold piece with sticky note listing a value of $1,600.

The total value of the gold coins and currency that Hayes stole is between $20,000 and $40,000, according to the government.

A federal public defender representing Hayes’ didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on her guilty plea.

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