Charlotte Observer – 7/18/24 – A man who stole at least $24 million in checks with his postal worker girlfriend and another woman will spend 4 1/2 years in federal prison, a judge ruled Thursday. As a 27-year-old, Donnell Gardner was involved in a 2023 scheme where the trio posted $12 million in stolen checks to “OG Glass Ceiling,” an online channel on the Telegram app.
There, people could buy the checks to cash them or try to replicate them, prosecutors said Thursday in U.S. District Court for the Western District of North Carolina. The scheme “violated the fundamental expectation of safety” in the United States Postal Service, they said.
Gardner’s girlfriend and USPS worker Nakedra Shannon, 29, would steal the checks from the mail, and Desiray Carter, 24, would post them online after Gardner redacted some information, according to court documents. When someone bought the check, they would get the unredacted version.
The group made hundreds of thousands of dollars in the scheme, which lasted from April 2023 to July 2023. Officers arrested them in November. On Thursday, U.S. District Judge Kenneth Bell ordered Gardner and the women to pay more than $100,000 in restitution. Read more at the Charlotte Observer. Read PEN’s original coverage below.
NC Postal Employee and Two Co-Conspirators Arrested For $24 Million Stolen Check Scheme
CHARLOTTE, N.C. – 11/17/23 – A U.S. Postal Service employee and two co-conspirators have been arrested on federal charges for a scheme involving stolen checks worth over $24 million, announced Dena J. King, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of North Carolina. The federal indictment was unsealed following the defendants’ initial court appearances.
Nakedra Shannon, 29, Donnell Gardner, 27, and Desiray Carter, 24, all of Charlotte, are charged with one count of conspiracy to commit financial institution fraud and five counts of theft of government property. Carter and Gardner are also charged with seven counts of possession of stolen mail matter, and Shannon is charged with eight counts of theft of mail by a postal employee.
According to allegations in the indictment, from March 2021 to July 2023, Shannon was employed by the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) as a mail processing clerk at a USPS processing and distribution center in Charlotte. From April to July 2023, Shannon conspired with Gardner and Carter to steal incoming and outgoing checks from the U.S. mail, which Gardner and Carter then sold to other individuals including using the Telegram channel OG Glass House. Over the course of the conspiracy, the co-conspirators allegedly stole checks totaling more than $24 million, including more than $12 million in stolen checks which were posted for sale on the Telegram channel OG Glass House, and more than $8 million in stolen U.S. Treasury checks. The indictment also alleges that the defendants obtained hundreds of thousands of dollars in criminal proceeds of the mail theft scheme.
Shannon, Gardner, and Carter were released on bond following their initial appearances in court.
The bank fraud conspiracy charge carries a maximum penalty of 30 years in prison. The charge of theft by a postal employee and possession of stolen mail has a statutory maximum penalty of five years in prison for the counts charged in the indictment. The charge of theft of government property carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison for each offense.
The charges in the indictment are allegations and the defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.
In making today’s announcement, U.S. Attorney King thanked U.S. Postal Service’s Office of the Inspector General, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, the IRS’s Criminal Investigation Division, the U.S. Department of Treasury Bureau of the Fiscal Service, and the Charlotte Mecklenburg Police Department for their investigation which led to the charges.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Jenny G. Sugar and Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Eric Frick with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Charlotte are prosecuting the case.
