{"id":29476,"date":"2020-10-20T10:10:42","date_gmt":"2020-10-20T15:10:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/?p=29476"},"modified":"2020-10-20T10:10:42","modified_gmt":"2020-10-20T15:10:42","slug":"former-west-virginia-postal-employee-pleads-guilty-to-role-in-marijuana-conspiracy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/2020\/10\/20\/former-west-virginia-postal-employee-pleads-guilty-to-role-in-marijuana-conspiracy\/","title":{"rendered":"Former West Virginia Postal Employee Pleads Guilty to Role in Marijuana Conspiracy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>HUNTINGTON, W.Va. \u2013 10\/19\/20 &#8211; United States Attorney Mike Stuart announced today that a former postal employee who participated in a scheme to ship and distribute marijuana which was mailed from California to Huntington pled guilty in federal court.\u00a0 Carl Andrew Varnum, 49, entered a guilty plea to conspiracy to distribute marijuana.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c16 pounds of marijuana delivered through the U.S. Mail. Varnum was a postal employee that was using the U.S. mail to facilitate marijuana trafficking,\u201d said United States Attorney Mike Stuart. \u00a0\u201cThis prosecution should be a reminder to all that marijuana is still illegal under federal law.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Varnum admitted that, between 2015 and March of 2018, he conspired with others to distribute marijuana in the Huntington area. \u00a0During the conspiracy, marijuana was frequently shipped through the United States mail from California to Huntington.\u00a0 Varnum, who was a U.S. Postal employee at the time, recruited a letter carrier also employed with the postal service, to receive and deliver the parcels.\u00a0 Once the parcels containing marijuana arrived in Huntington, the carrier delivered the parcels on his assigned delivery route.<\/p>\n<p>On March 15, 2018, agents located two parcels at the Huntington Post Office which had been mailed from California to Huntington and were found to contain marijuana.\u00a0 Agents conducting surveillance observed the carrier load the parcels into a postal delivery truck and drive to the Dollar General store located in the 800 block of Norway Avenue in Huntington.\u00a0 At that location, the carrier provided the marijuana to another individual who arrived in a separate vehicle.\u00a0 A trooper with the West Virginia State Police subsequently conducted a traffic stop of the vehicle and recovered the parcels which contained approximately 16 pounds of marijuana.<\/p>\n<p>Varnum faces up to 5 years in federal prison when he is sentenced on January 25, 2021.<\/p>\n<p>The United States Postal Service Office of Inspector General, the United States Postal Inspection Service, the West Virginia State Police and the Violent Crime and Drug Task Force West conducted the investigation.\u00a0\u00a0 United States District Judge Robert C. Chambers presided over the hearing.\u00a0 Assistant United States Attorney Joseph F. Adams is handling the prosecution.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-27588\" src=\"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/justice1aa-300x157.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"157\" srcset=\"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/justice1aa-300x157.jpg 300w, https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/justice1aa.jpg 478w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>HUNTINGTON, W.Va. \u2013 10\/19\/20 &#8211; United States Attorney Mike Stuart announced today that a former postal employee who participated in a scheme to ship and distribute marijuana which was mailed from California to Huntington pled guilty in federal court.\u00a0 Carl Andrew Varnum, 49, entered a guilty plea to conspiracy to distribute marijuana. \u201c16 pounds of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27588,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29476","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-breaking","last_archivepost"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29476","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29476"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29476\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29477,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29476\/revisions\/29477"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}