Postal contractor relief driver sentenced for mail theft

A West Virginia man has been sentenced to six months in federal prison for possessing stolen mail.

Thirty-eight-year-old Richard Thomas Morris Jr. of Washington in Wood County was sentenced Monday in federal court in Charleston.

Prosecutors say Morris was a relief driver for a U.S. Postal Service contractor whose job was to collect outgoing mail from post offices along a route between Parkersburg and Ravenswood.

In November 2016, law enforcement officials with the U.S. Postal Inspection Service stopped Morris at the Belleville Post Office and he consented to a vehicle search, which turned up a piece of opened mail addressed to a home in St. Mary's that had contained a greeting card and $50 in cash.

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1/23/2018 1:58:21 PM (GMT -5:00)