Mail carrier accused of swiping thousands in social services checks
A Brooklyn postal worker and three accomplices targeted the city’s neediest — plucking social services checks from the mail.
Making matters worse, since-canned letter carrier Vanessa Bandie, 29, and her co-defendants allegedly carried out the scam during the holiday season — from Oct. 25, 2016 to Dec. 27, 2016 — stealing nearly $30,000 in benefits checks from 66 people, according to Brooklyn prosecutors.
The group even allegedly swiped nearly $4,000 from residents of a homeless shelter, prosecutors said.
Bandie, whose route was in East New York, was approached by James Black and Lauren Johnson with the proposition to find mail with checks inside to later cash. Bandie, who would get paid from the proceeds, agreed to help them, prosecutors said.
Then the trio brought the checks to a Pay-O-Matic check-cashing business on Linden Blvd. where employee Paul Daniels would cash them and take a cut, prosecutors said.
Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez said Monday that the group, “stole from the most vulnerable among us, including residents of homeless shelters. We will now seek to hold them accountable.”
They were charged with grand larceny, identity theft and related charges and pleaded not guilty in Brooklyn Supreme Court.
Bandie and Daniels were released on their own recognizance while Black — who was already in jail on a separate matter — was held on $25,000 bail. Johnson was held on $1,000 bail.
Bandie stopped showing up to work in 2017 and was officially fired in Aug. 2018, according to a law enforcement source.
She is due back in court on Dec. 5 while the others are due back on Nov. 28.
Bandie’s lawyer, Gary Farrell, said, “She has no prior contact with the criminal justice system and is a hard-working single mother.”
A lawyer for Black did not immediately return requests for comment. Johnson’s lawyer declined to comment and Daniels’ lawyer could not immediately be reached for comment.
via: https://nypost.com/2018/10/01/mail-carrier-accused-of-swiping-thousands-in-social-services-checks/