[ZT]Cost of stealing $200: $55,000/year job with fringe benefits

Ex-mail carrier gets probation for embezzlement
Federal judge admonishes Gerardo Robertson for taking gift cards and cash.
By Robert Boczkiewicz / The Pueblo Chieftain, CO / June 3, 2010


DENVER — Only his military service kept a former Pueblo mail carrier from being put into custody Wednesday for stealing gift cards and cash from the mail.

"You get a break," U.S. District Judge Robert Blackburn told Gerardo Robertson in deciding to sentence him to two years of supervised probation rather than put him into custody. The judge said it was a close decision.

"You served this country with four years in the military," Blackburn said. "It's your 'get-out-of-jail-free' card — you only get to play it once."

Robertson pleaded guilty in March to embezzlement by a postal carrier, admitting he had opened at least 15 pieces of mail and stolen at least $200 from them in a six-month period.

Sentencing guidelines recommended a sentence in a range between six months and one year in custody, but provided for a sentence of probation as an alternative, the judge said.

The prosecutor, Assistant U.S. Attorney James Allison, and a probation officer who prepared a pre-sentence report for Blackburn recommended a sentence of probation.

Allison said the consequences of Robertson's guilty plea already are a significant punishment in addition to conditions imposed as part of probation. The prosecutor said the consequences include that it will be hard for Robertson to get a job and that it will be illegal for him, a hunter, to ever have a gun again because he now is a felon.

Robertson's court-appointed attorney, Kevin Flesch of Denver, told the judge that his client is unemployed and has no income. "He recognizes what he did was wrong."

"What could possess you to throw away nearly 30 years of service to the Postal Service?," where he was paid about $55,000 a year, plus fringe benefits, Blackburn wondered. "For roughly $200, you leave the courtroom branded shamefully as a convicted felon."

Because the judge asked the question rhetorically, Robertson did not answer.

Criminal investigators of the postal service's Office of Inspector General received information that Robertson was suspected of stealing from the mail. They put a "test" piece of mail containing $20 in cash into the mail in August and Robertson opened it, while assigned to delivery routes from the Main Post Office.

The postal service terminated his employment after a federal grand jury indicted him last year and managers reviewed the case against him.