Feds: Postal Worker Stashed Nearly 50,000 Pieces Of Undelivered Mail In Her California Apartment Share

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A U.S. Postal Service employee stashed nearly 50,000 pieces of undelivered mail in her California home, according to a criminal information filed against the worker.

Federal investigators charge that Sherry Watanabe hid "approximately 48,288 pieces of United States mail" in her apartment. The mail was intended for delivery to customers along Watanabe’s route in Placentia, an Orange County city.

Watanabe, 48, was named in a one-count felony criminal information filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles. In a plea agreement with prosecutors, Watanabe has admitted to the mail hoarding.

According to the plea agreement, Watanabe was hired as a mail carrier in June 2006, and she began collecting “large quantities of such mail” in her Placentia residence in 2011. While the undelivered mail was seized by law enforcement agents in late-2013, court filings do not indicate why more than two years passed before Watanabe was charged.

Though Watanabe faces a statutory maximum of three years in custody, prosecutors have agreed to recommend that a term of imprisonment not exceed “the low end of the applicable Sentencing Guidelines range.”

In similar previous prosecutions, mail carriers have claimed that the volume on their routes was so onerous that they opted to hide the mail instead of delivering it.