On Tuesday, June 11, authorities declared that a convict, who used to work for the US Postal Service and was found guilty of embezzling $90,000, will be spending the next 18 months in jail.
According to the US Attorney for Massachusetts, Jamesa Rankins, a 27-year-old resident of Brockton, was convicted in November on charges of theft of government money and wire fraud. Her sentence includes 18 months of imprisonment and the requirement to pay back the $104,698 she embezzled from the Postal Service.
Before being terminated in 2021, Rankins served as a Sales & Service Distribution Associate at the Montello Post Office in Brockton for around four and a half years. Throughout her tenure, she had the ability to reprint money orders for customers in cases where they were misplaced, damaged, or issued incorrectly.
According to the prosecutor, a total of 126 counterfeit replacement money orders were produced by her, with a value of $90,000, starting in 2020.
Back in May of 2020, it was reported that she had filed for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance from the Massachusetts Division of Unemployment Assistance, despite still being employed at the Post Office. She managed to collect a whopping $15,000 in fraudulent funds before officials caught on.
