Checks in 23 states for $405,000 of stamps and packages sent a Florida man to prison
A Tallahassee man defrauded the U.S. Postal Service out of more than $400,000 for nearly three years across 23 states.
Edward Morgan pirated the USPS with a fleet of counterfeit checks from Florida to California, from Massachusetts to Arizona and 19 other states. His run started in November 2016 and ended with his May 2019 arrest in New Mexico.
Morgan, 49, pleaded guilty to theft of government funds and was sentenced Thursday to six years and six months in federal prison and restitution of the $405,935.
A fraudulent stamp collector (and seller)
As schemes go, Morgan’s was basic. His admission of facts with his guilty plea says he would buy large numbers of stamps and send packages with counterfeit checks, then resell the stamps.
Take May 2, 2018, a date on which Morgan’s admission says he bought 100 coils of stamps, 2,500 signs of paid postage and mailed a package Priority Express Mail from a post office branch in Lakeland. Between the $1,250 for the stamps and the parcel, he had to pony up $1,274.70. Which he did, by check.
The Justice Department’s sentencing memorandum says Morgan didn’t just mail in the scheme:
“He fabricated checks with company addresses that matched the city and state in which he intended to pass them, so as to arouse less suspicion among postal employees,” it says. “He dressed sharply, and spoke like a business person, so as not to raise suspicion about an individual purchasing thousands of dollars of stamps at a time.
“And Morgan did all of this in excess of five hundred times.”
He also worked the scheme under the names of Edward Croce, Edward Carrera, and Patrick Troy. Troy is a dead former schoolmate of Morgan’s.
According to court documents, Morgan operated his scheme in Florida, but also Alabama, Arizona, California, Connecticut, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia.
This story was originally published February 1, 2021 at 7:33 AM.
