A St. Louis postal worker has been federally indicted after allegedly dumping an astonishing 30,000 pieces of Americans’ mail in overgrown vacant lots instead of delivering it.
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Missouri, 54-year-old Armond Paige was indicted on September 2 on one count of delaying or destroying mail while employed by the U.S. Postal Service.
Federal prosecutors allege Paige discarded the mail in vacant, weed-covered lots across St. Louis from approximately 2024 through April 29, 2026.
At the time of the alleged scheme, Paige was working out of the Maryville Gardens Post Office on Meramec Street in south St. Louis.
Paige appeared in federal court Tuesday and pleaded not guilty, according to the Justice Department and First Alert 4.
If convicted, he faces up to five years in prison, a fine of up to $250,000, or both.
The U.S. Postal Service Office of Inspector General conducted the investigation. Assistant U.S. Attorney Gwen Carroll is prosecuting the case.
The indictment does not identify the contents of the discarded mail, state that election ballots were among the 30,000 pieces, or allege that Paige acted with a political motive.
WATCH:
First Alert 4 photographed the same kind of scene in April: a heap of soaked envelopes and junk mail rotting in the grass.
FOX 2’s crew was on the ground with the red postal tubs while the pile was being collected.
Democrats want Americans to entrust the most important election materials in the country to a system in which, according to federal prosecutors, a single employee was allegedly able to dump at least 30,000 pieces of mail across vacant lots for more than two years.
