A postal service contract route carrier from Texarkana stole cash, gift cards and veterans' medications, and burned mail he opened but could not use, according to federal court sentencing information.
During a sentencing hearing Tuesday before U.S. District Judge Susan O. Hickey in Texarkana, Cody Millard was sentenced to three years of probation and was ordered to pay $200 in restitution. Millard pleaded guilty July 30 to one count of stealing mail.
Court records show that Millard had turned over five stolen gift cards worth $511.60 to authorities when he was arrested in December 2014.
He also admitted stealing five or six packages from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, hoping to find pills he could sell on the street, according to a plea agreement Millard signed with the government.
Millard burned anything he opened but didn't want to keep, such as checks and money orders, the plea agreement said.
The thefts were discovered when a $200 Sam's Club gift card that a Texarkana woman mailed in a letter to her son in Cincinnati in November 2014 never arrived, the plea agreement said.
It said the woman went to Sam's Club and learned that the card had been redeemed at a Texarkana Wal-Mart store Dec. 19, 2014, two days after she mailed it.
A special agent with the U.S. Postal Inspectors Office obtained the security video of the person redeeming the card and showed a screen shot of the person to the postmaster at Stamps, the plea agreement said. The postmaster identified the person redeeming the card as Millard.
Records show Millard had been assigned to the Buckner post office route on the day he would have picked up the mail containing the woman's letter to her son, the plea agreement said.
On Dec. 4, 2014, the agent prepared a greeting card containing $43 and placed it into the mail stream at the Taylor post office where Millard was working that day. The agent followed Millard as he prepared to transport the mail on the route.
Shortly after Millard loaded mail into his truck and began driving through Taylor, the agent received an alert that the envelope he put into the mail had been opened and the money removed.
The agent pulled Millard over, and Millard admitted to opening the letter and taking the money, the plea agreement said.
State Desk on 01/28/2016