Mailman Receives Probation for Dumping Voter Guides in Fremont County
A subcontractor mail carrier was sentenced in federal court on Wednesday for trashing bundles of League of Women voter guides addressed to households in Atlantic City and South Pass City.
Zechariah Morgan will serve one year of supervised probation, pay a special assessment of $25, and pay $398.64 in restitution, according to the sentence handed down by U.S. Magistrate Judge Teresa McKee in Lander.
Morgan also must perform 50 hours of community service, pay child support, submit to substance abuse testing, and receive cognitive behavioral treatment, McKee ordered.
In December, he pleaded guilty to one misdemeanor count of destruction of mail, and the government dismissed one misdemeanor count of desertion of mails at the sentencing hearing.
If the case had gone to trial and he had been convicted, Morgan could have been sentenced to up to a year imprisonment, a $100,000 fine and up to a year of supervised release after custody for each count.
The case started when a U.S. Postal Service contractor in Lander reported a customer in South Pass City said she saw her mail carrier discarding mail in a trash can on Sept. 18, according to an affidavit by a postal inspector.
The contractor had hired Morgan in May as the mail carrier for the route that included South Pass City and Atlantic City, according to the affidavit.
The customer told the contractor that she saw something pornographic, as well as voter guides and other mail in the trash. The postal inspector learned that Morgan's route had received 449 Every Door Direct Mail voter guides from the League of Women Voters.
These were not absentee, or mail-in, ballots.
The contractor talked to Morgan, who said he didn't deliver the voter guides because the mail boxes were always full.
The postal inspector interviewed Morgan, who said he had thrown away bundles of voter guides and flyers from Spectrum, according to the affidavit. "Morgan stated he had thrown away pornographic material in the past, as he was not comfortable delivering it."
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a customer in South Pass City said she saw her mail carrier discarding mail in a trash can on Sept. 18,