Worker Steals $3M In Money Orders From Brooklyn Post Office: Feds

BROOKLYN, NY — A Brooklyn postal worker has been busted for stealing $3 million in money orders from her office, prosecutors announced.

Jaleesa Wallace, who lived in Brownsville, is accused of snagging 10,000 blank postal money orders from the Utica Avenue post office where she worked in East Flatbush, prosecutors said.

Wallace, who also had dozens of other people's unemployment benefits cards, was arrested Tuesday morning, a few days after a co-conspirator who she had hold onto a few hundred of the money orders was taken into custody, prosecutors said.

“As alleged, the defendant, a trusted public servant, pilfered thousands of postal money orders from the Postal Service and had in her possession Department of Labor unemployment benefit cards, giving her and her co-conspirator access to more than $3 million in cash,” Acting United States Attorney Jacquelyn Kasulis said. “This Office will vigorously prosecute government employees who exploit their positions for personal gain and abuse the public trust.”

Investigators caught onto Wallace's scheme when a station manager at the Utica Avenue post office, found near Lenox Road, told the United States Postal Service that a February shipment of money orders never arrived at the office, according to court documents.

Records showed that the 10,000 money orders, worth up to $1,000 each, had been delivered to the office, but not entered into the system, according to the documents.

A few months later, authorities found out some of the money orders were with a man named Willie Cook, who posted photos of them on a social media app with the caption "let's eat," prosectors said.

Searching Cook's house last week, they found 300 of the stolen orders, $1,200 in cash and 21 credit cards not in his name, including prepaid debit cards for unemployment benefits, documents show.

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.

Wallace's home was searched later that day.

Investigators found more than 3,000 of the stolen money orders, $42,000 in cash, 37 unemployment debit cards and 42 pieces of mail not in Wallace's name at her home, documents show. More than $1.4 million worth of the stolen money orders had already been cashed, prosecutors said.

Wallace, who was in New Jersey during the search, was on the loose until Tuesday morning, prosecutors said. She appeared in court Tuesday afternoon.

Cook, arrested earlier, has been released on a $25,000 bond, prosecutors said.