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Oscar Abreu, age 41, of South Ozone Park, Rafael Grullon, of Manhattan, age 40, and Aldo Palomino Jr., of Long Island City, age 30, were charged in connection with their participation in a conspiracy to receive bribes and steal hundreds of pieces of mail, according to an announcement from Damian Williams, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York.
The US Attorney's Office said the defendants are each charged with conspiracy to commit theft and receipt of stolen mail, theft of mail by a Postal officer or employee, and conspiracy to receive bribes.
Abreu was arrested on Thursday, Aug. 11, in White Plains, and Grullon and Palomino were arrested on Friday, Aug. 12, in Queens, Willaims said.
"As alleged, the defendants accepted bribes and stole hundreds of pieces of mail, abusing the public trust placed in them as employees of the U.S. Postal Service and enabling the perpetration of a multi-million-dollar scheme to obtain fraudulent COVID-19 unemployment benefits," Williams said. "My Office and our partners in law enforcement will continue to hold accountable the individuals who defraud government benefit programs as well as anyone else who enables them to do so."
According to complaints filed in federal court, the defendants are accused of accepting cash bribes to intercept and steal mail sent by the New York State Department of Labor to addresses along their postal routes in Queens from about July 2020 to about December 2020.
Abreu allegedly agreed to accept $200 for every envelope he intercepted and turned over to his co-conspirator, Williams said.
The bribes eventually increased to $500 per envelope, and Abreu later recruited Grullon and Palomino for the scheme, the US Attorney's Office said.
The stolen mail was linked to a scheme by the co-conspirator and others to obtain COVID-19 unemployment benefits through fraudulent filing and verification of benefit claims using the names and social security numbers of hundreds of other people, according to the report.
Williams said law enforcement agencies learned of the scheme after the co-conspirator and another co-conspirator fled from a Yonkers hotel in December of 2020, leaving behind a room with more than 700 pieces of mail from the Department of Labor that contained, among other items, benefit debit cards.
The stolen mail was tied to more than 500 unemployment benefit claims seeking more than $16 million in benefits, about $3 million of which had already been disbursed.
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