Flatter

I. FACTS

Following a report by the Veterans’ Administration (“VA”) that fourteen packages containing class II medications2 had been lost, postal inspectors began to investigate the possibility of mail theft at a postal facility in Spokane, Washington, through which all of the lost packages had been routed. Postal inspectors soon focused their attention on Andrew Flatter after a cross-comparison of work schedules revealed that he was among a handful of workers who had been present on nearly all of the dates on which mail was lost.

The inspectors focused on Bay 32, which housed sorted mail that was to be delivered to Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. The mail in Bay 32 was in large, rectangular mesh boxes, some- times referred to as “crab pots.” Flatter’s job was to drive a “tug,” a motorized vehicle used to move the crab pots around the facility. Because the mail in Bay 32 was already sorted, there was no need for Flatter to have any contact with the mail beyond loading the crab pot into the appropriate truck in the loading bay.

The postal inspectors placed six decoy packages into two of the crab pots in Bay 32. The decoys were placed on top of the already-sorted mail so that they would…