Cincinnati, Ohio – DuJuane L. Samuels, 25, from Cincinnati, entered a guilty plea yesterday in U.S. District Court for conspiring to commit mail theft. This plea comes with a suggested sentence of 48 months in prison as agreed upon in the plea negotiations.
In the early hours of March 11, Samuels, leveraging unlawfully obtained postal access, engaged in the theft of mail from collection boxes along Cornell Road, according to the details disclosed in court records. The crime involved the use of a postal key, which Samuels used to gain entry into these secured boxes.
The situation escalated when Samuels removed a GPS-tracked device placed by law enforcement as part of a decoy operation by the United States Postal Inspection Service. The tracking data from this device was instrumental in leading investigators to Samuels’s home on Republic Avenue.
A thorough search of Samuels’s residence by the authorities uncovered not only the stolen USPS arrow key, which is used by postal workers to open multiple mail boxes, but also a firearm and numerous checks identified as stolen.
Samuels’ guilty plea was announced by Kenneth L. Parker, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio, and Lesley Allison, Inspector in Charge of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service’s Pittsburgh Division. The proceedings were held before Senior U.S. District Judge Timothy S. Black, with Assistant United States Attorney Timothy S. Mangan representing the prosecution.
