The Department of Justice on Tuesday announced that a former U.S. Postal Service (USPS) employee in Kentucky is facing federal criminal charges after allegedly throwing several bags of mail in a dumpster that included more than 100 absentee ballots being sent to voters.
DeShawn Bojgere, 30, of Louisville, was charged in the Western District of Kentucky with delay or destruction of mail in violation of 18 U.S. Code § 1703, U.S. Attorney Russell Coleman said in a press release.
“Especially in these times, Americans depend on the reliability and integrity of those that deliver the U.S. Mail,” Coleman said. “Conduct by Postal employees that violates that duty will result in swift federal prosecution.”
Prosecutors claim that earlier this month Bojgere discarded “a large quantity of mail” from a single route that was all scheduled for delivery on the same day.
“The mail, found in a construction dumpster on Galene Drive in Louisville, included approximately 111 general election absentee ballots from the Jefferson County Clerk’s Office being mailed to voters to be filled out,” the DOJ stated. “The dumped mail also included approximately 69 mixed class pieces of flat rate mail, 320 second class pieces of mail, and two national election campaign flyers from a political party in Florida.”
Bojgere later told USPS special agents that he was responsible for tossing the discarded mail in the construction dumpster, DOJ said. All of the discarded mail was copied as evidence before being placed back into circulation for delivery.
At this time, there is no evidence indicating that Bojgere’s conduct was specifically intended to affect the delivery of the absentee ballots he was carrying. The motive is unclear. The charges come after several other instances of USPS employees interfering with the delivery of mail-in ballots. As previously reported by Law&Crime, earlier this month USPS agents raided the home of a QAnon-aligned mail carrier in Baldwin, Pennsylvania who was suspected of hoarding undelivered mail.
Authorities in Boston charged a man on Monday who allegedly lit fire to a voting drop-box, destroying 45 out of 122 ballots it contained.
If convicted as charged, Bojgere faces a maximum of 5 years in prison, a $250,000 fine, as well as one year of supervised release.
[image via Scott Olson/Getty Images]
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