If marketers in the Raleigh, NC area have been wondering why response rates in certain neighborhoods have been non-existent, now they have a possible explanation.
A 58-year-old former mail carrier admitted yesterday in federal court that he had stashed thousands of pieces of commercial mail at his home rather than deliver them, according to a report in the Charlotte News & Observer.
Steven Padgett, of Raleigh now faces a possible prison sentence.
He was caught when a utility worker spotted a large amount of mail in postal boxes at his home. When agents from the U.S. Postal Services' Inspector General's Office went to Padgett's house in May, they found dozens of pallets stacked to the top of his garage and filled with direct mail pieces, mostly store circulars and coupons, the News & Observer reported.
Padgett had been under pressure to deliver all his mail in a timely manner and began skipping the direct mail to save time, his lawyer Andrew McCoppin said, according to the News & Observer.
"He made a poor choice, he made a wrong choice," McCoppin said.
Postal inspectors don’t know exactly how much mail they took from Padgett's home, but have filled up three-quarters of a tractor trailer with the mail found in Padgett's garage and buried in his backyard, according to the report.
Padgett resigned the day he was questioned by postal authorities. He'll be sentenced on Nov. 17, and faces up to five years in prison or three years of probation.
