An employee at the United States Postal Service (USPS) pleaded guilty to stealing more than $300,000 in checks and other items such as gold and collectible currency from mail, according to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ).

Joivian Tjuana Hayes, 36, of Compton, who was a supervisor at the Costa Mesa Post Office in California, pleaded guilty on Friday, the DOJ said in a Feb. 7 statement.

According to the plea agreement, while Hayes was on duty with the USPS between early last year and December 2024, she stole “checks that had been mailed, which she then deposited into her own bank accounts by forging the payees listed on the checks.”

Hayes stole at least 20 checks totaling roughly $284,000, and deposited them in her accounts at various banks. Besides this, she stole $3,000 in postal money orders. The DOJ said Hayes wore a blue T-shirt bearing a USPS logo during some of the ATM deposits.

In addition, roughly $20,000 to $40,000 worth of items were stolen from the mail. “During a search of Hayes’ residence last month, law enforcement found multiple gold coins and bills of U.S. currency that had been sent by registered mail.”

“Among those items included a $1 bill dating from 1917 with a sticky note listing a value of $675, a $100 bill dating from 1914 valued at $1,500, and a $10 Confederate States of America bill,” the agency said. “During that same search, federal agents also found various gold pieces, including a $5 gold piece with sticky note listing a value of $1,600.”

A stolen U.S. Treasury check in the amount of $2,599 payable to another individual was also found inside Hayes’s home.

The total value of the theft is estimated to be between $304,000 and $324,288.

Hayes pleaded guilty to one count of theft of mail matter by a postal service employee. She also pleaded guilty to a count of unlawful transfer, possession, and use of means of identification.

A sentencing hearing is scheduled for May 23. Hayes faces a jail term of up to 15 years for the unlawful transfer charge and up to five years for the theft charge.

USPS Mail Theft Issue

Other cases of postal employees engaging in theft include the 2024 incident when two former USPS employees were charged for allegedly stealing U.S. Treasury checks worth more than $4 million.

The checks were stolen from a USPS mail facility located at the John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, where one of the defendants worked, the DOJ said.

Earlier in December 2023, a USPS postal inspector was charged for allegedly stealing a Priority Mail Express package, removing cash and a GPS from the mail. In his role at USPS, the defendant was tasked with preventing crime involving mail.

An October 2024 report from the USPS Office of Inspector General detailed the theft issue within the mailing service.

While USPS has procedures and processes in place to deter internal mail theft, such incidents “still occurred in processing facilities nationwide due to a lack of a nationwide policy restricting personal belongings on the workroom floor, elevated supervisor and manager vacancy rates, and no dedicated periodic mail theft awareness employee training.”

“Additionally, processing facilities nationwide are outfitted with cameras to monitor workroom floors, but some cameras were not operational due to failures with switches, servers, or cables. The Postal Inspection Service does not have a documented plan or guidance to monitor the operational status of the cameras.”

The report recommended that the postal service identify all non-functioning cameras, and develop a plan to restore their operations. It advised the agency to develop a nationwide policy on personal belongings on workroom floors.

In May 2024, a group of lawmakers introduced the Protect Our Letter Carriers Act, a bill aimed at fighting mail crime.

The legislation authorizes $7 billion over a five-year period to set up high-security mail collection boxes. It also aims to replace older versions of universal mailbox keys with electronic ones.

“This bill will make long-overdue upgrades to mailboxes around the country to safeguard against the theft of Americans’ sensitive information. It will also strengthen penalties for assaulting a postal worker,” said Sen, Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), one of the lawmakers who introduced the bill.