Telegraph Staff Writer
STARKE— The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Florida said a Starke man and a Melrose woman could be sentenced to up to five years in prison for stealing U.S. mail from residences in five counties.
On June 27, Maranda Ann Stewart, 26, pleaded guilty to one count of mail theft. In July, Connor Lee Austin, 28, pleaded guilty to the same charge.
Neither defendant has been sentenced.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a news release that in late April 2022, the Clay County Sheriff’s Office received multiple reports of mail being stolen from mailboxes in the Keystone Heights area.
“Surveillance footage from homes in that area captured a truck driving down roads with the passenger, later identified as Austin, and his co-defendant, Stewart, stealing mail from mailboxes,” the office said. “On May 6, 2022, the Baker County Sheriff’s Office arrested Austin and Stewart for their involvement with a fraudulent check. During the arrest, the BCSO conducted an inventory search of the truck used by them and located over 100 pieces of mail that had been stolen from various addresses in Clay County.”
Investigators later determined that after stealing mail, Austin and Stewart used Austin’s phone in an effort to deposit stolen checks into their bank accounts through mobile deposit. Law enforcement recovered mail that Austin and Stewart had stolen from Baker, Bradford, Clay, Duval, and Putnam counties.
Austin is currently serving a three-year sentence in state prison for grand theft and burglary convictions in Bradford County and grand theft and petit theft convictions in Union County.
Stewart is currently on drug offender probation.
