An Iowa man faces up to 65 years in prison for forging postage stamps for his eBay business
Madison Hall - Insider
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An Iowa man is facing up to 65 years in prison for forging postage stamps on 28,000 packages and costing the United States Postal Office $250,000, according to the Department of Justice.
Bradley Jon Matheny was convicted on Wednesday on seven counts of postage meter stamp forgery and counterfeiting, as well as three counts of export violations.
Matheny is the owner of "Mathenys," an eBay-based business that shipped retail goods around the globe. According to court filings, Matheny relied upon the USPS to ship items to his customers, but at a large financial cost. In order to cut down on mailing expenses, Matheny admitted in court to forging the postage meter stamps on the packaging.
Matheny told investigators his primary way of skirting shipping fees was predicated on abusing the trust of the USPS. Though Matheny was not an approved commercial bulk shipper by the US Post Office, the agency granted him permission to bring his mail and packages to the back loading dock instead of the front lobby.
During court hearings, several post office workers testified that Matheny consistently dropped off his packages after the 8 p.m. cutoff, leading workers with little to no time to inspect the packages.
According to court testimony, a former postal office manager said he asked Matheny to bring in his mail earlier to avoid putting her workers on a time crunch, but Matheny told him that "would not be possible and asked if he should take his business elsewhere."
Because of Matheny's late packages, postal office employees said they only had time to glance at the top portion of Matheny's postage meter stamps and trusted their validity.
But in 2015, a mail handler tipped off the post office manager about the weights of Matheny's packages and said the mail was consistently heavier than the postage Matheny would use, leading to an investigation into Matheny's business practices.
Investigators found that Matheny would sometimes buy postage meter stamps for a 3-ounce package but would carefully alter the 3 into an 8 to trick the office into sending his packages. They also found that Matheny intentionally purchased two types of stamps, priority and first-class, for his packages. He then would place the priority mail postage, the more expensive option, at the top of the package and the first-class postage that included a scannable barcode at the bottom.
Because Matheny dropped his packages off so late in the evening, postal workers would place the packages in priority mail shipping due to the stamp at the top of the package, often disregarding the first-class postage at the bottom. After a few days in the mail, Matheny would then apply for a refund on the priority shipping postage he had purchased as the postage was never formally scanned in.
Matheny's sentencing date has not been scheduled, but he was freed on bond pending sentencing. The 42-year-old faces a maximum sentence of 65 years in prison, a $2.5 million fine, and three years of supervised release.
