A longtime Postal Service employee has been charged with stealing thousands of pieces of junk mail–all in a bizarre effort to garner ideas for a direct-mail business he ran on the side, authorities said Thursday.
The thefts were discovered in November when a fire broke out at the Downers Grove home of the postal employee, Gordon Richardson Jr., officials said.
Firefighters had to remove piles of junk mail from the home in order to reach the blaze, said David Colen, a spokesman for the U.S. Postal Inspection Service in Chicago.
In an indictment made public Thursday, Richardson was charged with stealing about 26,000 pieces of mail.
What makes the case even more unusual was that Richardson was a distribution clerk at the Oak Brook post office–not a carrier delivering mail.
Colen said Richardson stole a few pieces of junk mail almost every day over many years. The thefts drew no suspicion since he was not stealing greeting cards or other first-class letters that people expected to receive, Colen added.
Richardson, though, had an interest in checking out the latest junk mail to give him ideas for the direct-mail business he operated, Colen said.
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Compiled from RedEye news services.
