Massachusetts USPS employee sentenced for stealing $90K in money orders

BOSTON (WWLP) – A Massachusetts Postal Service employee was sentenced to prison after being found guilty of stealing more than $90,000 in money orders as well as fraudulently receiving unemployment benefits from the state.

According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, 27-year-old Jamesa Rankins of Brockton was sentenced to 18 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release and must also pay back $104,698 in restitution. Rankins was found guilty of theft of government money and three counts of wire fraud in November of 2023.

Rankins was a Sales and Service Distribution Associate at a U.S. Post Office in Brockton for four and a half years before she was terminated in January 2021. As part of her job, she had the ability to generate postal money orders as well as replace money orders. Customers were able to replace money orders that may have been lost in the mail or damaged.

Beginning in September 2020, Rankins created 126 fake replacement money orders to an associated for money orders that were not lost or damaged, and in some cases caused the real money orders to become invalidated. In total, Rankins issued $90,000 in fake money orders.

Rankins also applied for pandemic unemployment benefits from the state in May 2020 while still being employed by USPS. She collected at least $15,000 in unemployment benefits she was not entitled to.

This case stems from the COVID-19 Fraud Enforcement Task Force, established to investigate and prosecute people who illegally took advantage of relief programs that were available to those in need during the pandemic.

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