HOUSTON – A former Houston letter carrier has been indicted by a grand jury, accused of stealing millions of dollars in checks that should have been delivered to Harris County mailboxes.
Accused ringleader Kameron Goodwin, 26, is charged with engaging in organized crime and theft. His co-conspirators include Keyshawn Jones, 25, and Sylvester Brown, 31.
Jones’ girlfriend, Desiree Junius, and her mother, Doris Butler, have also been charged with theft in the scheme.
So far none of them have been arrested on the new charges.
Emmitt Charles, 27, received more than $20,000 in stolen checks, records show, but he was arrested and charged separately in a similar case involving fake IDs and impersonating customers to withdraw bank funds.
“Goodwin ran a vast criminal network, stealing well over $1M in checks and brokering them to at least three bidders, who in turn washed, altered, or counterfeited the stolen checks, then deposited and stole the proceeds,” prosecutors wrote in court documents obtained by KPRC 2.
Goodwin worked at Houston’s Roy Royall Post Office, which is responsible for mail delivery in zip codes 77016, 77028, 77044, 77050 and 77078, according to a USPS spokesperson. 2020 Census data shows those zip codes have a total of about 125,000 residents.
Federal investigators from the USPS Office of Inspector General began a criminal investigation at Roy Royall in 2022, according to records, after USPS credit cards kept getting swiped for fuel at odd hours. Surveillance video later showed non-USPS vehicles being filled up with gas.
Investigators also received reports, from a mail carrier all the way to an international company, about checks not getting delivered as they expected.
“It’s like every route that he touched...people was complaining. They was getting complaints about mail was coming up missing,” a USPS employee told KPRC 2, speaking anonymously fearing retaliation.
She said she became aware of the problems at Roy Royall.
“It made me angry at the time. I was very angry,” she said. “It is thieves working amongst the postal service right now. I’m pretty sure he’s not the only one.”
Zeroing in on Goodwin
Houston Police served a search warrant at a home in Atascocita last November.
A woman from Garland, Texas told police her identity had been stolen to rent the home to Goodwin’s girlfriend at the time, according to records.
Inside, they found Goodwin, who they quickly learned was a mailman.
“Officers immediately began to notice a lot of mail that was not addressed to the legal residents,” Harris County prosecutor Michael Levine told only KPRC 2.
Goodwin was arrested that day with more than 22 grams of methamphetamine and a gun, according to court records.
“Defendant appears to be an active participant of drug sale/trafficking and a public safety concern,” prosecutors wrote in court documents.
The investigation involving all the mail in the house got turned over to federal investigators.
Goodwin had been a letter carrier employed at the Roy Royall Station since August 2021 but he resigned after that arrest, KPRC 2 has learned.
Goodwin became the focus of a massive federal investigation. Search warrants for homes, cell phones, and Instagram, combined with Goodwin’s time sheets and attendance records, helped explain what happened to the stolen checks that mostly belonged to small businesses.
“In the case of every check that was stolen, that was found either in his vehicle or through images in his phone, they were able to pair up a route that he had worked on, on or about the exact day the check went missing,” Levine said.
Goodwin ran ‘vast criminal network’
After a monthslong investigation, last week, a Harris County grand jury indicted Goodwin and his co-conspirators.
The stolen checks included federal tax refund payments, monthly social security payments, and monthly social security disability payments, according to records.
Goodwin has been tied to well over $1 million in checks stolen straight from the mail between August and November 2023, investigators said.
Prosecutors said Goodwin would sell the checks for a flat fee and most of the transactions were usually discussed on Telegram, an encrypted messaging app known for being hard-to-track.
“They don’t cooperate in most conventional ways,” Levine said.
A law enforcement source tells KPRC 2 the accused would use code words in digital discussions, referring to the stolen checks as “slips” and calling those from the U.S. Treasury “stimmies.”
Any alterations to the checks, including name, address, or amount, is referred to as “cooking” the check, the source said. The “slips” and “cooked slips” are trafficked in the same way as illegal drugs or other contraband.
There’s currently high demand on the streets for “slips” or “cooked slips,” the source said, in which profits could be notable.
In a photo Brown sent to his Telegram channel, someone could be seen wearing gloves to handle a $70,840 check.
“The fact the suspect was wearing gloves indicates to me that the suspect knew the check was stolen and they did not want to leave fingerprints on the stolen check,” investigators wrote in a search warrant.
Brown was also seen on his Instagram account posing with stacks of cash that investigators believe he got through theft and fraud.
“How prevalent is this kind of thing in the postal system?” reporter Bryce Newberry asked.
“There are certainly more postal employees that are doing this. I couldn’t comment on how many, but I will tell you, if you’re doing it, your case is probably being worked already and you may think you’re getting away with it. You’re not, you’re going to be caught,” Levine said.
Investigators tracked some of the stolen money to bank accounts in Louisiana, which they say belonged to Jones’ girlfriend Desiree Junius and her mother Doris Butler.
Jones’ phone records showed he called Butler’s cell phone the day the counterfeit check got deposited, records show.
‘Embarrassing’ for postal employees
For honest and hardworking USPS employees, it’s a scheme that stings.
“Not everybody is bad at the postal service,” the anonymous employee said. “It’s like embarrassing ... everybody that drives them trucks, put on these uniforms, it looks bad on everybody.”
The postal service and federal law enforcement have not answered any questions about how these types of issues are being handled or how Houston compares to other parts of the country when it comes to internal mail theft.
“I think some of these folks are thieves before they come to the post office, to be honest with you,” the employee said.
The employee expressed concern about whether the postal service is doing proper background checks on new hires.
Applicants go through background checks and drug screenings, according to this USPS website, but a spokesperson couldn’t confirm whether every new hire goes through an in-person interview.
“While I cannot release information regarding our investigative techniques or protocols, I assure you, the U.S. Postal Service Office of Inspector General (USPS OIG), takes every allegation of criminal acts by postal employees very seriously, which our special agents review and investigate to determine possible violations,” a spokesperson for the USPS Office of Inspector General told KPRC 2.
Goodwin had been charged in Harris County prior to his USPS hire with criminal mischief, records show, after punching and breaking a woman’s apartment window during an argument about a TV remote. That charge was later dismissed after he completed a pretrial intervention program, records show.
Protecting yourself from mail theft or check fraud
The USPS offers Informed Delivery, which is how one of the theft victims knew she had a check scheduled to be delivered before it never arrived, according to records. You can sign up for free online.
Levine also recommended if you mail a check, to check with your bank online or in-person for a photo of it to confirm it went to who it was supposed to.
All five suspects are indicted on felony charges but have not yet been apprehended. Information that leads to an arrest could be eligible for a reward of up to $5,000 through Crime Stoppers of Houston at 713-222-TIPS.