You've Got Jail: PLG Postal Worker Who Stole $4M Sentenced, DOJ Says

PROSPECT-LEFFERTS GARDENS, BROOKLYN — You've got jail! A former postal worker has been sentenced to years in prison for stealing millions in blank money orders from a Prospect-Lefferts Gardens post office, federal prosecutors announced Wednesday.

Former Utica Avenue postal worker Jaleesa Wallace, 31, was sentenced to two years six months in prison — and ordered to pay $4 million in restitution — following her conviction of postal theft, said U.S. Attorney Breon Peace

“The defendant exploited her position with one of our most trusted institutions, the United States Postal Service,” said Peace.

“Residents of the district need to be confident that postal employees carry out their duties honestly and that important documents can travel safely in the mail.”

Wallace was arrested in July 2021 after a manager at her Utica Avenue post office noticed a delivery of 10,000 blank postal money orders was never entered into the system, according to court records.

Prosectors said some of the money orders were found months later with a man named Willie Cook, who posted photos of them on a social media app with the caption "Let's eat."

Authorities searched Cook's house and discovered 300 stolen money orders, $1,200 in cash, and 21 credit cards — including prepaid debt cards — not in his name, according to court documents.

More than $4 million worth of money orders had already been cashed around the country, prosecutors said.

Cook, who didn't work at the post office, eventually told authorities that Wallace, who he met at the post office, gave him the money orders and had put the rest in her car, documents show.

Later that day, a search at Wallace's apartment turned up more than 3,000 stolen money orders, $43,000 in cash, prepaid Department of Labor unemployment benefit cards and approximately 42 pieces of Department of Labor mail not addressed to her, prosecutors said.

Cook pleaded guilty in March 2022 and is awaiting sentencing.