by Autumn Klein
A U.S. Postal Service carrier was caught allegedly trying to cross the Canadian border with undelivered mail, including several absentee ballots, according to The Buffalo News.
Brandon Wilson was stopped while crossing Peace Bridge from New York into Canada at around 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, The Buffalo News reported.
Border agents found over 800 pieces of mail that had failed to be delivered in the trunk of Wilson’s car while conducting a routine vehicle search, according to the Department of Justice. There were three absentee ballots found in the mail bin, federal authorities reported.
Among the mail found in Wilson’s truck were three absentee ballots, 106 political, 220 first-class, and 484 standard pieces of mail, according to The Buffalo News. The mail was sent between Sept. 16 and Oct. 26, according to NBC News.
Wilson told border agents that he did not intend to attempt to cross into Canada, but ended up in the wrong lane on I-190, leading him to accidentally end up at the Peace Bridge Port of Entry, per The Buffalo News.
When Customs and Border Protection agents questioned him about the undelivered mail, Wilson stated it was not undelivered, but rather belonged to himself and his mother, according to The Buffalo News. He failed to explain why he was in possession of mail addressed to other people, The Buffalo News reported. Wilson denied knowledge of the absentee ballots being among the mail in his trunk, per The Buffalo News.
Wilson was arrested and has been “charged by criminal complaint with delay or destruction of mail,” according to the Justice Department. He is to appear in court on Nov. 11, according to The Buffalo News.
The mail was retrieved by the United States Postal Service Office of Inspector General, the Justice Department said.
“This office is committed not only to ensuring the integrity of the mails, but also of individuals’ rights to vote in a free and fair election. The criminal conduct with which this defendant is alleged to have engaged undermined both of these interests,” U.S. Attorney James P. Kennedy Jr. said, according to The Buffalo News.
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Autumn Klein is a reporter for the Daily Caller News Foundation.
I despise people who get a good paying job and won`t even try to do their job in a competent manner. Other people depend on their mail.
I hear ya, Boyd! In my 20’s I worked my butt off at the U.S.P.S. It was in a branch office in a City in the San Francisco Bay area. I worked from 1:00 AM to 9:00 AM, unloading trucks that arrived from the MPC (Mail Processing Center) that was located in San Francisco, then sorting the mail into the individual carrier’s routes. After that, I would work in the mail forwarding area, the undeliverable mail area, also working at the front counter taking care of customers, and I was also a back up mail carrier for anyone of those who had called in sick, had time off, or whatever reason they weren’t there on any given day!
I had worked there a little over a year, when I became pregnant with our first child. It was a rough pregnancy and I had a LOT of morning sickness. The truck driver’s that delivered all of the HUGE bins of mail and packages were amazed that the supervisor would let me get on the big forklifts to unload these “in my condition”! What probably threw them off guard was that a 6-1/2 months pregnant I LOOKED like I was 9+ months pregnant! At 7-1/2 months pregnant, I got very sick with kidney issues and ended up in the hospital. The Dr. put me on bedrest until I delivered. I ended up “delivering” my little whopper when I was 10 months and 12 days pregnant, and it was by C-section. My Doc put me on my 3 month maternity leave at that point, stating in his letter to my Supervisor, that the 2-1/2 months I had taken previously was a “Medical Necessity” Leave because of my kidneys, and NOT my “Maternity “Leave”. I was surprised when my Supervisor called me on a Friday just 2 weeks after giving birth saying I was due back on that coming Monday, and if I didn’t show up, I’d be fired!! He said he didn’t even remember the letter I had given him, even though he and I talked about it over the phone several times during the course of my leave! I didn’t even have time to mount my defense, get another copy of my Dr.’s letter, or anything other thing because my shift to start back began at 1:00 AM the following Monday, and he was calling me at 4:30 PM on Friday!!!
I was SOOO MAD at that idiot and said to him something along the lines of, “Well, I hope you can live happily, Erie, knowing you just put one hell of a good woman with a two week old baby on the unemployment line, AND lost one hell of a good employee at the same time!!
I heard from one of my fellow postal workers that Ernie got fired about a month after that for “fixing” his time cards, saying he was working a LOT more than he really was!! Lol! Some people might say that’s stealin’!!
Karma’s a bitch. 😉