Feds could drop charges against Bellmore postal worker

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A U.S. Postal Service employee from Bellmore whose home was raided in April by federal agents finding more than 1,000 pieces of undelivered mail may strike a deal with federal prosecutors to have charges against him dropped, according to his attorney.

On April 3, investigators from the USPS Inspector General’s Office raided the home of Richard Schaaf, Jr., after they received a tip that there were numerous bags of undelivered mail on the property.

Investigators were seen at Schaaf’s home for hours on April 3, removing black trash bags that contained more than 1,000 pieces of mail, according to court documents.

According to the court documents, many of the pieces of mail dated back to March 2017, and were addressed to people and businesses in Nassau County, including Bethpage, where Schaaf delivered mail.

Schaaf’s attorney, Joseph Mure, said on Tuesday that the stress of the job got to Schaaf, and that “he’s obviously in some sort of treatment now.”

Mure has requested a deferred prosecution agreement, under which Schaaf would not be required to plead guilty, but would remain under probation for a time and resign his position with USPS.

“And hopefully, when everything’s finished, the charges would be dropped,” Mure said.

Garden City defense attorney Tom Liotti explained this week that deferred prosecution agreements are “rarely, if ever, happen” in federal criminal cases, but can happen when a defendant agrees to cooperate with authorities.

“It’s very much like an adjournment in anticipation of a plea,” he said.

Matt Modafferi, a USPS OIG spokesman, said in April that the inspector general’s office investigates “all kinds of allegations of mail theft and mail dumping,” and encouraged anyone who thinks they may be a victim of either crime to reach out to the office at 1-888-USP-SOIG, or file a complaint at www.uspsoig.gov.

In 2017, agents from the USPC inspector general’s office completed 705 official misconduct investigations, resulting in 48 arrests, 29 indictments, 30 convictions, 571 administrative actions and $91,049 in recovered funds, according to the OIG website.