Posted by Michael on 5/18/11

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Tuesday, May 18, 2011, 8:15pm: My wife works at a local
church as a secretary, and, as such, it is her job to
receive, look through, open up, read and sort out the mail
that is delivered to her office. She has a "incoming" mail
receptacle on her desk, into which either the mailman
places the incoming mail that he is delivering that day, or
if my wife receives the mail in hand from the mailman at
the front entrance of the church, she immediately places it
in the very same mail receptacle to await her perusal. She
also has another mail receptacle, an "in-box" mail
receptacle on the counter top across from her desk, which
is where the mail goes into after she has opened
up/read/sorted out the mail. This receptacle has twelve
separate "in-boxes", so that after she goes through the
mail, she places the "processed" mail into the
appropriate "in-box" for each church personnel for whom the
mail is addressed to. She has her OWN in-box for herself,
where mail goes which is addressed to her, and her mailbox
was full the day before the incident. Three and a half
weeks ago, a church member and a church employee, using the
church employee's key to the church office, unlocked and
entered my wife's office after evening church service had
ended. My wife and I were leaving the church when we
happened to walk by the open office door, and we saw those
two women in the office. My wife and I could both easily
see that my wife's "in-box" still had a lot of mail in it,
and my wife also had a UNOPENED USPS package on her desk
which had arrived that very day. It appeared to the both of
us that they were looking for something, but we thought
nothing of it, and nothing was said. The next morning, my
wife and I entered the church office [and we know for a
fact that NOBODY else had entered the church office
overnight {after we had left to go home, those two women
were still in the office} to discover that not only had the
package that was on my wife's desk BEEN OPENED UP AND HAD
THE CONTENTS EMPTIED OUT ONTO THE DESK TOP BY ONE OF THOSE
TWO PERSONS, but also my wife's "in-box" mail slot was
completely empty, that ALL of her mail addressed to her had
been discarded and thrown into the trash. My wife
immediately contacted her supervisor, and told her what had
happened the night before in the office. My wife's
supervisor confronted and talked to both of the women who
had been in the office. One woman admitted/confessed to my
wife's supervisor that she indeed had thrown out ONLY the
mail that was in my wife's "in-box" into the trash [she did
not touch anyone else's in-box] and that the other woman
had also admitted/confessed that she had been the person
who had opened up the box that was addressed to my wife
that had been on my wife's office desk. My wife was very
upset by this event, and and we believe that what those two
women did was clearly illegal "tampering" with my wife's
mail, a federal crime, punishable by up to five years in a
federal prison and a $250,000 fine. My wife has been giving
serious consideration to filing a complaint with the U.S.
Postal Service for what those two persons did in illegally
both opening up and throwing out her mail. How would my
wife go about doing so? Would she first file a complaint
with the local post office in our town, and would that
complaint then be forwarded to the Massachusetts Attorney
General's Office for potential prosecution? Thank you very
much!! Michael from Massachusetts

Mail Tampering, 5/18/11, by Michael.

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