United States Attorney Anne M. Tompkins
Western District of North Carolina
CHARLOTTE, N.C. – A Concord woman was sentenced today to 21 months in prison and one year of supervised release for misappropriation of postal funds, announced the Anne M. Tompkins, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of North Carolina. Chief U.S. District Judge Robert J. Conrad, Jr. also ordered the defendant to pay $51,000 as restitution to the Postal Service.
U.S. Attorney Tompkins is joined in making today’s announcement by Paul Bowman, Area Special Agent in Charge of the United States Postal Service, Office of the Inspector General (USPS –OIG).
In December 2011, following a one-day trial, a federal jury found Leslie McCready, 45, of Concord, guilty of one count of misappropriation of postal funds. According to evidence presented at trial, McCready was the Lead Sales and Service Associate at a Postal Office in Charlotte. McCready created fraudulent “Service not Rendered” transactions in her terminal and converted cash from the refund transactions for her personal use. Between March 2008 and July 2009, McCready performed 1,452 “Service not Rendered” transactions, totaling $51,530.09. Many of the “Service not Rendered” transactions entered by McCready took place after the customer service lobby was closed. Evidence at trial included videotaped surveillance of McCready entering fraudulent refund transactions and pocketing cash from the terminal.
“Today’s sentence should serve as a warning to anyone who thinks they can steal from the Postal Service, or any other government agency, and get away with it. We will not allow the likes of Ms. McCready to tarnish the good reputation of the millions of postal employees who put in an honest day’s work,” stated U.S. Attorney Tompkins in announcing today’s sentence.
“The U.S. Postal Service Office of Inspector General takes these cases very seriously and investigates them to the fullest extent of the law,” said Special Agent in Charge Paul Bowman. “Ms. McCready reflects a very small percentage of employees who failed to uphold the integrity placed in them while handling Postal funds. The general public should be reminded that the majority of postal employees remain committed to exhibiting the highest moral character and trust that customers expect and deserve.”
McCready, who has been released on bond since April 2011, was permitted to self-report to the Federal Bureau of Prisons upon designation of a facility. Federal sentences are served without the possibility of parole.
The case was investigated by USPS-OIG, and the prosecution for the government was handled by Assistant U.S. Attorney Jenny G. Sugar and Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark Odulio of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Charlotte.
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