BY DARRELL HALEN
Moyer was doing more than delivering mail in Salem on his postal route. He was allegedly swiping money from greeting cards.
Moyer, of 35 Appleton Lane, Hampstead, faces theft charges in U.S. District Court in Concord.
Sean Conway, postmaster of the Salem Post Office at 51 South Broadway, told postal service investigators around May 1 that he had received complaints from customers and letter carriers that Moyer filled in for on routes.
They complained of money missing from greeting cards and the back of cards being taped due to being tampered and opened.
From Aug. 3 to 4, Special Agent Suzanne Leone of the U.S. Postal Services’ Office of Inspector General observed Moyer opening seven greeting cards and examining their contents, according to an affidavit she wrote.
Leone observed Moyer taking money out of one card, sealing the envelope with tape and putting the money in his wallet.
On Sept. 10, Leone arranged to send two test pieces of mail to addresses on Moyer’s route. She put a $10 bill in one of the cards and recorded the serial number.
Later in the day, agents working with Leone observed Moyer, while on his route, pull into a parking lot and park by a dumpster in a secluded area for about 10 minutes, according to her affidavit.
After leaving, Moyer was arrested. An agent found the $10 bill in one of Moyer’s pockets and other agents discovered seven pieces of mail, collected by Moyer on his route, that had been opened and taped shut, according to Leone’s affidavit.
Moyer has been a full-time mailman in Salem since November 1995.
He is currently on unpaid leave, pending the outcome of a postal service investigation, according to spokesman Agapi Doulaveris of the Inspector General’s office.
If convicted, Moyer faces fines and up to five years in prison.
“Right now, we’re in the process of totaling up what he could have stolen,” she said.
Moyer is being represented by Bjorn R. Lange, a public defender. Lange declined to comment because he has not sought permission from his client to speak for him and he has not seen all the evidence that prosecutors have.
The case is being prosecuted by Mark S. Zuckerman of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Concord.