Mailman failed to deliver thousands of letters

Andrew Wolfson usatoday.com LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- On the popular sitcom "Seinfeld," fictitious letter carrier Newman hid bags of mail in Jerry's basement storage locker rather than deliver it. Real life mailman William "Brent" Morse of Dawson Springs in western Kentucky stashed his in his dead mother's house and a rented storage unit — at least 44,900 pieces of it. "He wanted to speed up his route," said Capt. Craig Patterson, a Dawson Springs officer who arrested Morse last year. "I think he was lazy." Morse, who had been a letter carrier for five years, was sentenced by Chief U.S. District Judge Joseph McKinley Jr. to six months in jail followed by six months' home incarceration for destroying, hiding and delaying the delivery of U.S. mail. Federal sentencing guidelines called for him to get a two-year sentence, but McKinley gave him less because he didn't steal from the mail and only a few of the 250 mail recipients on his route suffered financial losses. McKinley also ordered him to pay $14,808 in restitution to residents, a bank and two other businesses for their losses. He had pleaded guilty in December and was sentenced last week. The sentence was announced Tuesday. U.S. Postal Inspector Adel Valdes, an agency spokesman, said the post office doesn't rank such crimes but "this was a big one." The New York Post reported in March that a Long Island letter carrier had been charged with throwing about 1,000 pieces of mail into trash bins. In Australia, The Age in Victoria reported last year that a carrier for Australia Post was charged after about 10,000 undelivered pieces of mail were found in his bedroom. to read more: usatoday.com