{"id":40428,"date":"2026-10-16T11:01:17","date_gmt":"2026-10-16T16:01:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/?p=40428"},"modified":"2026-10-16T11:01:17","modified_gmt":"2026-10-16T16:01:17","slug":"alabama-indicted-postal-employee-pleads-not-guilty-to-destroying-campaign-mailers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/2026\/10\/16\/alabama-indicted-postal-employee-pleads-not-guilty-to-destroying-campaign-mailers\/","title":{"rendered":"Indicted Alabama postal employee pleads not guilty to destroying campaign mailers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/1819news.com\/news\/item\/indicted-postal-worker-pleads-not-guilty-to-destroying-campaign-mailers\">1819 News<\/a> &#8211; 10\/Sekondi Watts pleaded not guilty last week to one count of mail destruction by a postal employee.<\/p>\n<p>Watts, a U.S. Postal Service (USPS) employee from Center Point, was indicted in September in the Northern District of Alabama for allegedly destroying or delaying campaign mailers for the May Republican primary.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>PENs original coverage below<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>BIRMINGHAM, Ala. \u2013 9\/24\/26 \u2013 A federal grand jury has indicted a U.S. Postal employee for destroying U.S. mail, announced U.S. Attorney Phillip W. Williams Jr.<\/p>\n<p>A one-count indictment filed in U.S. District Court charges Sekondi Watts, 43, Center Point, Alabama, with destruction of mail by a U.S. Postal employee.<\/p>\n<p>According to the indictment, in April 2026, Watts destroyed a batch of campaign mailers for a candidate running for state Senate.\u00a0 The incident occurred in Shelby County, Alabama.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis indictment reflects our commitment to protecting the integrity of our elections and the U.S. Mail, and we stand ready to prosecute anyone who interferes with fair and honest elections,\u201d said U.S. Attorney Williams. \u201cWe appreciate the work of our law enforcement partners in investigating this matter.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWith Election Day just around the corner, our office is on high alert and is committed to rooting out election integrity crimes in whatever form they take,\u201d said Assistant U.S. Attorney and Election Crimes Coordinator Brett A. Janich.<\/p>\n<p>The U.S. Postal Service-OIG investigated the case.\u00a0 Assistant U.S. Attorney Brett A. Janich is prosecuting the case.<\/p>\n<p>An indictment contains only charges.\u00a0 A defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/PEN-NEWS.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-29060 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/PEN-NEWS-300x176.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"176\" srcset=\"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/PEN-NEWS-300x176.jpg 300w, https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/PEN-NEWS.jpg 478w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>1819 News &#8211; 10\/Sekondi Watts pleaded not guilty last week to one count of mail destruction by a postal employee. Watts, a U.S. Postal Service (USPS) employee from Center Point, was indicted in September in the Northern District of Alabama for allegedly destroying or delaying campaign mailers for the May Republican primary. PENs original coverage [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29060,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,89],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-breaking","category-postal-crime","last_archivepost"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40428","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=40428"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40428\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40429,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40428\/revisions\/40429"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29060"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}