Updated: 3:33 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 28, 2013 | Posted: 3:16 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 28, 2013
Feds: Ex-postal workers stole $3.5M in tax, benefit checks
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Two former
postal workers and an accomplice pleaded guilty in federal court this
week to stealing more than $3.5 million in federal tax refund and
government benefits checks from a mail distribution facility in Atlanta.
Prosecutors
said Gerald Eason of Stockbridge and Deborah Fambro-Echols of Hapeville
may be responsible for the majority of federal checks stolen in Georgia
over the last four years.
The more than 1,800 victims not only missed tax refund checks but also Social Security and veterans’ benefits checks.
“A
major U.S. Treasury check theft ring that plagued this State for many
years has been successfully dismantled,” U.S. Attorney Sally Quillian
Yates said Wednesday.
Prosecutors said Eason and Fambro-Echols
stole thousands of U.S. Treasury checks while working at the U.S. Postal
Service’s Atlanta Processing and Distribution Center. Eason worked as a
supervisor, and Fambro-Echols worked as a mail handler.
An April
2011 search of Fambro-Echols’ Hapeville home uncovered 661 Treasury
checks totaling more than $590,000 that were issued in less than a
two-week period, prosecutors said.
On March 7 and 11, 2012,
surveillance video captured Eason stealing more than 1,300 checks worth
more than $2.8 million, prosecutors said.
Federal agents caught
Eason driving the stolen checks to a residence, where he thought they
would be distributed to co-conspirators who would cash them. He was
arrested while attempting to collect his take after a delivery.
Prosecutors
said the two postal workers recruited others at banks and business
establishments to cash the checks. They included Wendy Frasier of
Atlanta and Daralyn M. Weaver of Atlanta, who acted as brokers for
Fambro-Echols; and Jabril O. McKee of Riverdale and Ohmar D. Braden of
Covington, who worked as check cashers and helped with fake IDs.
Eason,
Fambro-Echols and Weaver were sentenced Wednesday. Eason, 47, was
sentenced to 7 years, 3 months in prison, to be followed by 3 years of
supervised release, and fined $15,000. Fambro-Echols, 50, was sentenced
to 6 years, 6 months in prison, to be followed by 3 years of supervised
release, and fined $12,500. Weaver, 31, was sentenced to 3 years in
prison, to be followed by 3 years of supervised release, and fined
$5,000.
McKee, 25, was sentenced in January to two years, four
months in prison, to be followed by three years of supervised release,
and fined $3,000. Braden, 37 was sentenced in December to two years,
four months in prison, to be followed by three years of supervised
release, and fined $2,000.
The sentencing for Frasier, 35, is scheduled for March 14.
