Dec. 13, 2022 - Epoch Times
12:56
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| Just five days ago, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania released this indictment right here against a man in the city of Philadelphia who was found to be in possession of about 15 mail-in ballots that had been stolen from postal service collection boxes within the area. | |
| That's right, the 27-year-old man, he's being charged with impersonation of a postal mail carrier. | |
| He's being charged with mail theft, possession of stolen mail, as well as unlawful possession of three different arrow keys. | |
| And arrow keys, in case you're not aware, they're those universal master keys that postal workers usually carry with them, which allow them to open things like mailboxes as well as all the letter slots inside of an apartment building. | |
| And a single arrow key can open up dozens of mailboxes within a given geographical area. | |
| And apparently, well, this man had three of them. | |
| Here's specifically what U.S. Attorney Jacqueline Romero, she's the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, here's what she wrote in the indictment statement. | |
| In July of 2022, while pretending to be a USPS mail carrier, James stole undelivered mail from a collection box located near the Kinseking Post Office in Philadelphia. | |
| In October of 2022, again, while pretending to be a USPS mail carrier, James stole undelivered mail from a collection box located near the East Germantown Post Office in Philadelphia. | |
| And in November of 2022, which is just last month, James possessed three arrow keys and approximately 15 mail-in ballots that had been stolen from USPS collection boxes. | |
| This appears to be the man's M.O. He'll pretend to be a mailman while at the same time actually stealing people's mail. | |
| Local news outlets over in Philly, they were actually able to get some undercover snapshots of this man while he was in action, and you can see them up on screen for yourself. | |
| They show him at different places and in different locations, impersonating a mailman, as he actually goes about his business of robbing the neighborhood, including by stealing people's checks, altering those checks, and then attempting to cash them for himself. | |
| Now, if convicted, Mr. | |
| Zach James, the alleged culprit in the case, he faces a maximum of 31 years in prison as well as a $1.5 million fine. | |
| However, what's really worth noting here is that these types of cases are up triple digits in many places across the entire country. | |
| And as you'll see in a moment, even if the culprit didn't intend to, perhaps like in this case, well, mail-in ballots can be stolen alongside other parcels. | |
| And again, this is not an isolated incident. | |
| In fact, mail theft has increased significantly over the past few years across the entire country, including theft which involves mail-in ballots. | |
| It's increased so much that alongside this indictment, well, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, she recorded a short video alongside an official from the USPS, which went a little something like this. | |
| There has been a rise in crimes involving the mail, including mail theft, check washing, and robberies of postal carriers. | |
| This issue is top of mind as we begin the busy holiday season. | |
| Make no mistake, mail theft is a serious federal offense. | |
| If you steal mail, you're going to prison. | |
| And indeed, amidst Pennsylvania's newly expanded mail-in voting rules, rules that I should mention allow almost anyone with a pulse to vote by mail, well, it's interesting to note that mail-related crimes are just going through the roof. | |
| It's gotten so bad, in fact, that again, despite having universal mail-in voting just a few weeks ago, in fact, it was right before the midterm elections, well, Pennsylvania's top election officials came out, and they advised the Pennsylvania voters to deliver their midterm ballots in person, to deliver their midterm mail-in ballots in person rather than to rely on to deliver their midterm mail-in ballots in person rather than to rely It's an indication of how serious the problem has gotten. | |
| And in fact, just one day after the Pennsylvania election officials issued this guidance, well, the USPS, the Postal Service, they announced that they are conducting an official audit within the city of Philadelphia as well as the surrounding areas. | |
| Meaning, the situation in Philly has gotten so bad that after years of reports of stolen packages, lost mail, and deliveries that take up to several months, well, the USPS inspector general, he came out and he announced an audit of the entire system. | |
| Here's how the Philadelphia Inquirer, the local newspaper out there, here's what they said regarding this audit. | |
| Now, of course, I am just joking about that. | |
| That is not the audit they're conducting. | |
| That's the audit I will be conducting later for anyone that does not smash that like and subscribe button. | |
| Regardless, though, getting back to what this audit is actually about, here is what the Philadelphia Inquirer actually said. | |
| Quote, amid ongoing complaints about lost mail and stolen packages, the United States Postal Service is auditing three post offices and a mail distribution center in Philadelphia. | |
| The Postal Service's inspector general will evaluate operations at the Philadelphia Processing and Distribution Center and three post offices in Germantown, Logan, and North Philadelphia. | |
| The audit will evaluate the efficiency of operations at the distribution center, survey conditions at the post offices, and assess customer service and mail delivery. | |
| Now, as I mentioned earlier, this audit comes amidst a giant increase in mail theft as well as robberies of mail workers. | |
| According to the Pennsylvania House Oversight Committee, over the past three years, attacks on mail carriers have more than tripled. | |
| That's more than a 300% increase in attacks on mail carriers. | |
| And again, this issue is exacerbated further by the fact that the mail service is now one of the main ways that our elections, including federal elections, are decided within the state of Pennsylvania. | |
| And so whereas before, these problems might have caused your gift card to get stolen in the mail, or something you ordered from Amazon to get stolen, which naturally enough sucks, but now these crimes have the potential to affect whether or not your vote makes it to its intended destination. | |
| It has the potential to actually disenfranchise you. | |
| Now, regardless of how rare or uncommon this crime actually is, it has that potential. | |
| And of course, it's not just the city of Philadelphia. | |
| But actually, as I mentioned a moment ago, it's a nationwide phenomenon. | |
| Just to give you a few examples, a few months ago, over in the city of Los Angeles, a woman was walking her dog when she came upon over 100 ballots which were unopened and just lying there on the side of the road in East Hollywood. | |
| You can see the ballots up on screen for yourself. | |
| And here's what the woman who found them, Ms. | |
| Christina Rapacci, here's what she said about the incident. | |
| Quote, I turned the corner and I just saw this box of envelopes and it was a USPS box. | |
| I picked some envelopes up and I saw they were ballots. | |
| The woman then said that, seeing no better option, she took the ballots home for safekeeping and in order to figure out what to actually do next. | |
| Then she added this, quote, I actually called the sheriff's department. | |
| I couldn't get through, so I emailed them. | |
| I got an email back from a deputy, basically in so many words, saying it wasn't their problem, and to contact the USPS. Eventually, she said that she was able to connect with the county registrar who came personally to her house to pick up the ballots. | |
| However, she said that this entire process left her not only stressed out, but also it relied heavily on the good nature of the person who found the ballots, since many people might have just thrown them away. | |
| Here's in fact specifically what she said. | |
| Quote, I just don't think it should have been this hard to figure out what to do with legal ballots. | |
| This is a country of freedom and our votes should matter and something like this should never happen. | |
| Now this case in Los Angeles, just like the case over in Philadelphia, appears to be a case of mail theft rather than intentional ballot tampering. | |
| In fact, after a short investigation, here was what the LA Registrar's Office said in a statement regarding these 100 ballots found on the side of the road. | |
| "Early signs indicate that this was an incident of mail theft and not a direct attempt at disrupting the election. | |
| We are cooperating with the United States Postal Service and law enforcement to investigate." However, what this statement seems to miss is that regardless of whether it was intended to disrupt the election or just a regular case of mail theft, well, the result is the same. | |
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| And now let's head on back to the studio. | |
| That regardless of whether it was intended to disrupt the election or just a regular case of mail theft, the result is the same. | |
| Just like what happened prior to the 2020 election over in the state of New Jersey, wherein you had a postal worker who was arrested for dumping more than 1,000 pieces of mail in dumpsters. | |
| The mail that he dumped contained about 99 general election ballots. | |
| And then likewise, according to a press release put out by the Department of Justice, prior to the 2020 election, two men from St. | |
| Paul, Minnesota, they were charged with stealing mail that they ultimately wound up dumping on the roadside in Wisconsin. | |
| Although, just like the cases of Philadelphia and Los Angeles, the statement from the Department of Justice then went on to say that the men stole the mail in order to find items of value and not necessarily to disrupt the elections. | |
| There was another case out in Sacramento, California that happened just a little while ago, wherein a man was waiting for his family's three absentee ballots to arrive by mail, because he pre-ordered them. | |
| Now, in his particular town, they have an interesting free service, wherein the Postal Service, the USPS, actually sends pictures to the residents of the mail that they are about to receive. | |
| And so, because the man had a photo, he knew that the ballots were sent to him by the post office on Friday. | |
| He waited and waited, but they never showed up. | |
| They never arrived. | |
| And so the man, who was worried that his ballots were stolen, he called up the local elections office, and here was how the conversation went according to reporting from a local media. | |
| "When he called to report the concern to the Sacramento County Elections Line, the man told us his representative told him this wasn't the first time they got a call about missing ballots. | |
| Jana Haynes, a spokesperson for the county's elections, told CBS 13, which is the local affiliate, there's no way to confirm the ballot was stolen unless someone is found in possession of the ballot. | |
| However, she said the best solution for the concerned voter is to void the ballot he was supposed to receive and either request a new one or vote in person. | |
| And quite frankly, there are plenty of stories just like these. | |
| But the big question is always this. | |
| Are these just isolated incidents, and or do they happen at a large enough rate to affect any real change? | |
| Now, of course, the fact-checkers online, they say conclusively that they don't. | |
| And that might be true. | |
| It might be the case that all these are just isolated, small-time incidents that are rare and uncommon. | |
| However, I myself have never seen a deep dive report into whether or not that is the case. | |
| And so what I'm trying to do is to put one together myself. | |
| A report regarding mail theft in general, as well as ballot theft specifically, in order to see both how prevalent it is, and also to see whether mail theft... | |
| Whether inadvertently or not has an effect on elections. | |
| And to that end, I would like to get your help. | |
| If you know of any stories, or if you happen to have any stories yourself, please send them to me and my team. | |
| You can either leave them in the comments section below, which we'll be digging through for the next week or two, or if you happen to have any files, pictures, or article links that you'd like to send, you can email it all to factsmatter at epictimes.com. | |
| That's factsmatter at epictimes.com. | |
| You can email any and all documents, stories, news articles, and pictures, anything you think that can help contribute to this report. | |
| And then also, if you'd like to go through anything that we've discussed thus far in today's episode, all these documents, they will all be down in the description box below for you to peruse. | |
| And also, I should mention that down in the description box, I'll also throw a special link to an offer that one of our advertisers is having. | |
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| The link will be right there in the description box below. | |
| And then, until next time, I'm your host, Roman from the Epoch Times. |
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