Forget about ringing twice, the postman wasn’t even ringing once in Tacony for the better part of a year, according to a criminal case filed last week by a federal prosecutor.
U.S. Attorney Zane David Memeger announced the arrest of United States Postal Service employee Patrick D’Ambrosio on July 22, alleging that the letter carrier failed to keep his appointed rounds and that he hoarded about 22,500 pieces of undelivered mail inside his own garage.
D’Ambrosio, 48, was assigned to the 19135 ZIP code when he stopped delivering the mail between May 2014 and last January, the prosecutor’s office said. Suspecting that D’Ambrosio had adopted his own version of the postman’s creed, USPS inspectors searched his garage and his car earlier this year and allegedly recovered 7,182 first class letters, 220 certified letters, 11,734 standard letters, five first class U.S. Treasury checks, 307 pieces of political mail, 2,508 letters from nonprofits, 417 second class periodicals and 137 small parcels.
Many of the items were addressed to people on D’Ambrosio’s route, the prosecutor said, while there also were many outgoing items addressed to recipients outside the ZIP code. D’Ambrosio had stashed the rerouted mail inside trash bags, according to the allegations.
Authorities did not disclose information about the defendant’s employment status or his home address, stating only that he lives in Philadelphia. He was formally charged by criminal information with one count of obstruction of mail, a misdemeanor punishable by up to six months in prison and a fine.
The USPS reportedly forwarded the withheld parcels to their intended recipients.
The new case is eerily similar to one that occurred five years ago involving a postal carrier in Bell’s Corner. When the guy known as “Dave the Mailman” didn’t show up for work for several days in April 2010, his bosses went to his home in the Holme Circle area. The carrier, David Blauser, 42, was nowhere to be found but they did find tubs full of undelivered mail, mostly addressed to the area of Castor Avenue and Benton Street. There were about 13,000 items in all.
Some of the items had been sitting around for more than a decade and included paychecks, government documents and a college acceptance letter. Those letters and parcels were also forwarded to their intended recipients. Authorities found and arrested Blauser the following September. ••
