Postal Inspection Service
Employee Theft & Embezzlement
|
|
United States Postal Inspection Service Employee Theft & Embezzlement |
Whoever, being a Postal Service officer or employee, embezzles any letter, postal card, package, bag, or mail, or any article or thing contained therein entrusted to them or which comes into their possession intended to be conveyed by mail, or carried or delivered by any carrier, messenger, agent, or other person employed in any department of the Postal Service, or forwarded through or delivered from any post office or station thereof established by authority of the Postmaster General or of the Postal Service; or steals, abstracts, or removes from any such letter, package, bag, or mail, any article or thing contained therein, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.
Whoever, being a Postal Service officer or employee, loans, uses, pledges, hypothecates, or converts to their own use, or deposits in any bank, or exchanges for other funds or property, except as authorized by law, any money or property coming into their hands or under their control in any manner, in the execution or under color of their office, employment, or service, whether or not the same shall be the money or property of the United States; or fails or refuses to remit to or deposit in the Treasury of the United States or in a designated depository, or to account for or turn over to the proper officer or agent, any such money or property, when required to do so by law or the regulations of the Postal Service, or upon demand or order of the Postal Service, either directly or through a duly authorized officer or agent, is guilty of embezzlement; and every such person, as well as every other person advising or knowingly participating therein, shall be fined in a sum under this title or equal to the amount or value of the money or property embezzled, whichever is greater, or imprisoned not more than 10 years, or both; but if the amount or value thereof does not exceed $1,000, they shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both.
This section shall not prohibit any Postal Service officer or employee from depositing, under the direction of the Postal Service, in a national bank designated by the Secretary of the Treasury for that purpose, to his or her own credit as Postal Service officer or employee, any funds in his or her charge, nor prevent the negotiating of drafts or other evidences of debt through such bank, or through United States disbursing officers, or otherwise, when instructed or required so to do by the Postal Service, for the purpose of remitting surplus funds from one post office to another.