Three postal workers have been charged with scamming a midtown post office's annual toy drive by posing as needy kids in handwritten letters to 'Santa' asking for iPads, laptops, headphones and snow boots, among other 'gifts.'
Terry Jackson, Mahogany Strickland and Nickyeves Saintalbord allegedly penned the fake letters between November 2013 and January 2014, while working at James A. Farley Post Office on Eighth Avenue. And if adopting the perspective of a disadvantaged kid isn't sleazy enough, the trio also submitted multiple copies of each letter in the hopes of gaining a statistical advantage over actual needy kids.
It keeps going. According to court papers, Strickland "would ensure that the writer's letter and its copies were prominently placed in the adoption area [where do-gooders came to pick Operation Santa letters], thus increasing the likelihood that the letter would be selected by a Secret Santa,” the News reports.
To keep everyone guessing, the complaint says Strickland and Jackson sometimes just “stole packages intended for underprivileged children by simply replacing the correct mailing address for the intended recipient with their own mailing addresses."
According to ABC, during questioning, Jackson admitted to making 20 copies of a single letter, and the trio admitted to replacing kids' addresses on gift packages with their own about 50 times, total.
All three workers appeared in Manhattan Federal Court today, on mail fraud charges that carry a maximum of 20 years in prison.
