ROSLINDALE, MA – A former Roslindale Post Office employee was sentenced Wednesday in federal court in Boston in connection with failing to deliver thousands of pieces of mail and even opening and stealing gift cards and cash from them.



Megan Hawes, 29, of Roslindale, was sentenced to two years of supervised release and 80 hours of community service. She avoided prison time despite stealing what prosecutors said was 9,700 pieces of mail from nearly 1,100 people. In December 2018, Hawes pleaded guilty to one count of theft of mail matter by a Postal Service employee.

Hawes was arrested in June last year after a tow company said they found stacks of undelivered mail found in the back of an SUV in a Weymouth impound lot. The car, which was registered to Hawes' boyfriend, was towed after it was flagged for being uninsured and having an expired registration.

After it sat in the lot, the tow company employee found bundles of unopened and opened mail in the back, US Postal Service crates and several Amazon packages that had been ripped open.

He contacted Police and the US Postal Service, which started an investigation. USPS determined Hawes had used that car while in her postal carrier capacity. She admitted she had been stealing mail and not delivering it, sometimes opening them looking for cash and gift cards, according to the U.S. District Attorney's office for Massachusetts.



The Department of Justice said they found mail dating back between March 10, 2017 to May 10 of this year, while Hawes still worked for the US Postal Service and assigned to Roslindale between September 2016 and May 2018.

The court determined that between March 2017 and May 10, 2018, Hawes embezzled and stole more than 9,700 pieces of U.S. mail that she never delivered. She sifted through and stole the contents of some of the mail that contained cash and gift cards.