A postal worker in Kentucky was hit with federal charges after it was found he allegedly dumped a large amount of mail in the dumpster, including over 100 absentee ballots.
CBS News reports that U.S. Attorney Russell Coleman announced on Monday that DeShawn Bojgere, a 30-year-old from Louisville, Ky., was charged with the delay or destruction of mail. The charge is a federal crime that is punishable by up to five years in prison, a $250,000 fine, and a year of supervised release, should Bojgere be convicted.
According to Coleman’s press release, Bojgere allegedly threw a large amount of mail into a dumpster at a construction site around Oct. 5 and Oct. 15. The mail included 69 pieces of mixed class mail, 320 pieces of second class mail, and 111 absentee ballots sent out by the Jefferson County Clerk’s Office to be filled. All the discarded mail was from one delivery day across a single route.
The discarded mail was recovered and put back in the system for delivery, with copies being made for the purpose of evidence. Bojgere, who obviously no longer works for the postal service, admitted to special agents that he was the one responsible for disposing of the mail.
Man, imagine being interrogated by special agents for the U.S. Postal Service. I can only imagine the process went something along the lines of this:
It’s still unclear why, exactly, Bojgere tossed out the mail.
Crazily enough, this was not the first or even second mail/ballot-related incident to occur in recent weeks. In Pennsylvania, two separate postal workers were found with undelivered mail earlier this month. Last week, ballot boxes were found to have been set ablaze in both California and Massachusetts.