A former U.S. Postal Service mail carrier who stole more than 1,500 pieces of mail from hundreds of customers along her delivery route in Santee was sentenced Friday to five years of probation and ordered to perform 200 hours of community service.
Tracy Rumley, 44, of El Cajon, was first spotted last November taking mail from a communal mailbox at a Santee apartment complex, prosecutors said. One of the residents, an off-duty San Diego police detective, saw the woman flee in a car and spotted her license plate.
Stream San Diego News for free, 24/7, wherever you are with NBC 7.
WATCH HEREMore San Diego County news:
Investigators later searched Rumley's home and found more than 1,500 pieces of mail, which included gift cards, credit cards and Christmas presents stolen from almost 900 customers, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.
Get top local San Diego stories delivered to you every morning with our News Headlines newsletter.
SIGN UP Though she'd been fired from the Postal Service a few weeks before the police search, she'd kept the keys she used as a mail carrier to access mailboxes and continued stealing mail after her firing, prosecutors said. The keys were found in a potted plant in Rumley's bedroom.
"Stealing mail is not the way to go. You will be caught, and you will be prosecuted," U.S. District Judge Janis L. Sammartino said when imposing the sentence.
Victims of Rumley's crimes were quoted in the government's sentencing papers, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
"I felt shocked because I got robbed by the mail lady," a child victim said.
Rumley was charged by federal prosecutors in January and pleaded guilty three months later.
