Gary Wayne Collins, Detaining and Delaying U.S. Mail, North Carolina 2017

Gary Wayne Collins, a 53-year-old former U.S. Postal Carrier from Forest, City, N.C., has pleaded guilty to detaining and delaying U.S. mail in Cleveland and Rutherford Counties, announced Jill Westmoreland Rose, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of North Carolina.

Collins appeared before U.S. Magistrate Judge Dennis Howell on Tuesday, February 21, 2017, and pleaded guilty to one count of unlawfully destroying, detaining, and delaying U.S. mail, a charge that carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

According to court documents and the plea hearing, on April 15, 2014, a witness observed Collins placing several tubs of mail behind a dumpster in Shelby, N.C. The witness notified the local Postmaster and the tubs of mail were recovered. The Postmaster determined that the recovered tubs contained deliverable mail for addresses on Collins’ delivery route, who at the time was a U.S. Postal Service Rural Carrier.

Court records indicate that when postal agents interviewed Collins two days later, Collins told the agents that he had never intended to dump any mail and that he had left the tubs near the dumpster only temporarily, intending to return later to pick them up. Collins also told the agents that he had never thrown away any mail or stored it at his residence.

However, in May 2014, postal agents discovered more than 1,800 pieces of undelivered mail hidden in Collins’ residence and his vehicle. The undelivered mail included 134 pieces of First-Class mail dating as far back as April 2000. Court records indicate that postal agents also found additional pieces of undelivered mail inside a partially-collapsed outbuilding located on Collins’ property. The Postal Service used a backhoe to remove two full-sized dump truck loads of mail from the outbuilding, which had to be destroyed due to extensive weather damage.

Collins admitted in court that for approximately ten years he had been bringing to his residence the mail that he had not delivered. He was released on bond following his plea hearing, and a sentencing date has not been set yet.

The investigation was led by the United States Postal Service, Office of Inspector General. Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Edwards, of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Asheville, is prosecuting the case.

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