{"id":38950,"date":"2026-01-29T15:47:37","date_gmt":"2026-01-29T20:47:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/?p=38950"},"modified":"2026-01-29T15:47:37","modified_gmt":"2026-01-29T20:47:37","slug":"last-of-four-individuals-charged-in-63-million-mail-theft-conspiracy-including-two-postal-employees-pleads-guilty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/2026\/01\/29\/last-of-four-individuals-charged-in-63-million-mail-theft-conspiracy-including-two-postal-employees-pleads-guilty\/","title":{"rendered":"Last of Four Individuals Charged in $63 Million Mail Theft Conspiracy, Including Two Postal Employees Pleads Guilty"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n
\n

DETROIT<\/strong> \u2013 1\/28\/26 – Four individuals who were charged in an Information last year for their involvement in a $63 million scheme that involved stealing checks from the mail and selling them online have all since pleaded guilty, United States Attorney Jerome F. Gorgon Jr. announced today.<\/p>\n

Gorgon was joined in the announcement by U.S. Postal Service Inspector General Tammy Hull; Acting Inspector in Charge Sean McStravick, U.S. Postal Inspection Service, Detroit Division; Special Agent in Charge Karen Wingerd, Detroit Field Office, Internal Revenue Service – Criminal Investigation; Special Agent in Andrew McKay, Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, Mid-Atlantic Field Division; and Megan Howell, Special Agent-in-Charge, Great Lakes Region, U.S. Department of Labor, Office of Inspector General.<\/p>\n

Jaiswan Williams, 32, of Rochester Hills, Daquan Foreman, 32, of Eastpointe, Vanessa Hargrove, 40, of Detroit, and Crystal Jenkins, 32, of Detroit, all pleaded guilty to conspiracy to aid and abet bank and wire fraud. Williams also pleaded guilty to money laundering, and accepted responsibility for $1.5M of fraudulent pandemic unemployment insurance benefit claims submitted between May 2020 and September 2021.<\/p>\n

Hargrove and Jenkins were United States Postal Service employees who diverted and ultimately stole checks and other negotiable instruments from the mail, including a high volume of tax refund checks issued by the U.S. Treasury. Williams and Foreman were the administrators of the online marketplaces used to sell the checks.<\/p>\n

According to the Information, postal employees Hargrove and Jenkins would provide the stolen checks to Williams and Foreman in exchange for payments. Williams and Foreman would take those checks and market them for sale via Telegram Messenger, a cloud-based, cross-platform instant messaging application.\u00a0 Prices varied based on the face-value of the checks.\u00a0 One of the Telegram channels, named \u201cWhole Foods Slipsss,\u201d was used to advertise high-dollar checks, while another channel, named \u201cUber Eats Slips,\u201d was used to advertise lower-dollar checks.\u00a0 \u201cSlips\u201d is a term commonly used in these schemes to refer to stolen checks.\u00a0Transactions were completed off-platform using a variety of electronic payment systems.\u00a0 Purchasers of these checks would then attempt to fraudulently cash them using a variety of methods.<\/p>\n

All four defendants face up to 30 years in prison for the conspiracy. Williams also faces up to 20 years on the money laundering charge.<\/p>\n

Sentencing hearings will be held later this year, in front of U.S District Judge Judith E. Levy, as follows:<\/p>\n

D-1 Jaiswan Williams: April 14, 2026<\/p>\n

D-2 Daquan Foreman: March 3, 2026<\/p>\n

D-3 Vanessa Hargrove: March 3, 2026<\/p>\n

D-4 Crystal Jenkins: May 27, 2026<\/p>\n

This multi-agency investigation was led by the U.S. Postal Service Office of the Inspector General (USPS-OIG), with the assistance of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service (USPIS); the Internal Revenue Service-Criminal Investigations (IRS-CI); the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA); and the Department of Labor Office of the Inspector General (DOL-OIG), and is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Ryan A. Particka.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Updated January 28, 2026<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

DETROIT \u2013 1\/28\/26 – Four individuals who were charged in an Information last year for their involvement in a $63 million scheme that involved stealing checks from the mail and selling them online have all since pleaded guilty, United States Attorney Jerome F. Gorgon Jr. announced today. Gorgon was joined in the announcement by U.S. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":33705,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,72,89],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38950","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-breaking","category-theftandfraud","category-postal-crime","last_archivepost"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38950","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=38950"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38950\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38951,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38950\/revisions\/38951"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33705"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38950"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38950"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}