Seventeen postal workers, who delivered mail to homes stretching from Fairburn to Roswell and Decatur to Austell, are accused of taking bribes to deliver packages they were told contained cocaine.
The charges were contained in three indictments unsealed on Wednesday. The FBI took the letter carriers into custody wearing their U.S Postal Service uniforms.
U.S. Attorney John Horn said the 17 “allegedly sold (the public’s) trust out to someone they knew to be a drug dealer.”
“For cash in their pockets they were willing to endanger themselves and the residents on their routes and bring harmful drugs into the community,” Horn said.
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David LeValley, the agent in charge of the FBI’s Atlanta office, called the charges “disturbing” and a “blatant abdication of the public trust.”
The sting operation began in February 2016, according to the federal indictments.
Federal authorities said the postal workers would give individuals they believed to be drug dealers a special address to put on packages which they were told contained cocaine. They would then pull those specially-addressed packages out and deliver them instead to their contact, who they thought was a drug dealer.
The supposed drug dealer was an informant working with authorities and there were fake drugs in the packages, Horn said.
Some of the postal employees also recruited co-workers and got extra money for the drug packages their recruits delivered.
One 76-count indictment accused 11 postal workers of taking bribes from supposed drug dealers.
A Decatur letter carrier, Jeffrey Pearson, was the only defendant named in a separate six-count indictment.
And five postal workers were named in an 11-count indictment. One of them, 56-year-old Dexter Frazier of Fairburn, also allegedly coordinated the logistics.
Others charged included:
• Cydra Rochelle Alexander, 31 and from Riverdale, who was assigned to the Ralph McGill Carrier Annex and Central City Branch of the Atlanta Post Office;
• Aurthamis O. Burch, 46 and from Snellville, who assigned to the Doraville Post Office;
• Kawana Rashun Champion, 35 and from Jonesboro, who was a clerk at the North Springs Branch in Sandy Springs and at the Central City Branch in Atlanta;
• Eleanor Lolita Golden, 54 and from East Point, who was a letter carrier assigned to the Atlanta West End branch;
• Tonie Harris, 54, of Decatur, Georgia, a letter carrier assigned to the Sandy Springs Post Office;
• Leea Janel Holt, 38, of Atlanta, Georgia, who was a letter carrier assigned to the Old National branch in Riverdale;
• Clifton Curtis Lee, 41 and from Lithonia, who was a letter carrier assigned to the Sandy Springs Post Office.;
• Shakeed Anilah Magee, 40 and from College Park, who was a letter carrier assigned to the West End Branch in Atlanta;
• Horace Manson, 40 and from Roswell, Georgia, who was a letter carrier assigned to the Atlanta West End Post Office;
• Olivia Marita Moore, 25 and from Atlanta, who was a letter carrier assigned to the Old National Branch in Riverdale;
• Eddie Nash, 63 and from Decatur, was a letter carrier assigned to the Atlanta West End Post Office;
• Jeffrey A. Pearson, 59 and from Austell, Georgia, who was a letter carrier assigned to the Decatur Post Office.
• Rodney Antwain Salter, 33 and from Jonesboro, who was a letter carrier assigned to the Atlanta Martech branch;
• Frank Webb, 40 and from Lithonia, who was a letter carrier assigned to the Atlanta Central City Post Office;
• Katrina Nicole Wilson, 38 and from Fairburn, who was a letter carrier assigned to the Atlanta West End Post Office;
• Harvel Donta Young, 39 and from Atlanta, who was letter carrier assigned to the Westside Annex Branch in Marietta.
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