Benita D. Randle, a former supervisor at the St. Louis Processing and Distribution Center, pleaded guilty Monday to stealing mail while she worked at the facility that handles all non-parcel mail for the St. Louis metropolitan area. Prosecutors say the 43-year-old took checks from the mail between September and October 2023 and passed them to John W. Harrison, who opened the envelopes and removed the checks.
Investigators determined that Randle stole 89 checks worth $369,248, and a counterfeit check with the same bank account and payor information as one of the stolen checks was also found. Harrison, 26, of Black Jack, pleaded guilty in February to possession of stolen mail matter. Randle is set to be sentenced on Aug. 20, while Harrison is set to be sentenced on June 3.
The case matters because Randle had access to all of the center’s mail, giving the theft an unusually wide reach inside a facility responsible for mail across the region. Prosecutors say the scheme came apart when Randle’s car was repossessed for not maintaining insurance, a detail that helped uncover what had been moving through the mail stream. The guilty pleas now leave sentencing as the next major step, and the numbers already show the scale: 89 checks, $369,248, and a postal employee inside the system.
The plea answers the central question in the st louis usps employee fraud case: investigators say the theft was real, it was broad, and it was carried out by a supervisor with direct access to the mail she was supposed to protect.
