Postal worker accused of dumping mail in Washington neighborhood

FOX 5 EXCLUSIVE – FOX 5 has confirmed there is an investigation into allegations that a postal worker dumped mail in Southeast D.C. instead of delivering it

The Postal Service’s Office of Inspector General says it is working to learn more about piles and even boxes of mail being thrown into a dumpster in the Fort Stanton neighborhood.

FOX 5’s David Kaplan spoke with a property manager Wednesday who said she’s found fully rubber-banded bundles of mail in a dumpster near a property in the 1800 block of Gainesville Street in Southeast about five times in the last five or six months . But she says the largest amount unloaded sometime last day – apparently two full boxes of undelivered mail – was.

Here’s a picture of it: It looks like two full boxes of undelivered mail pulled out of that dumpster.

She said she has been calling area stores over the past few months to let them know the items were addressed to her. In one case, she says, it was a business waiting for checks.

Allen Waddell said he noticed something strange with his mail when he received a letter from a utility company telling him he had missed a payment.

“Over time, I realized I wasn’t getting any mail. Not even junk mail, and I was just worried,” Waddell told FOX 5. “Then I think I got some mail that was really old, and I thought, ‘This can’t be right.'”

Waddell shared a video with FOX 5 that shows what he says has happened several times over the past few months: A truck backed up next to the dumpster, stopped for a short time and then drove away.

FOX 5 has blurred the face of this driver because we have not confirmed that this is a driver that explicitly sends email. The video was recorded on Tuesday.

The property manager says this is an unprecedented situation for her in two decades of work.

“That is my first time. I mean, slow mail, yes. Maybe I won’t get it for a week because the carrier is on vacation, but mail is never put in a physical dumpster where I see it, and it’s people’s mail,” she said. “This could be a person’s monthly check that pays their bills. It could be a letter from your doctor saying, ‘We want to see you.'” So why do you think you have the right to throw it away?”

In the same statement confirming that an investigation was underway, the postal inspector general said this was very rare and would not be tolerated, adding that the workforce was made up of good, hard-working and honest people.