An Essex County man today admitted stealing credit cards and checks from the mail while employed as a U.S. Postal Service letter carrier, Attorney for the United States Vikas Khanna announced.
Parrish Brookins, 30, of East Orange, New Jersey, pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Claire C. Cecchi to an information charging him with one count of mail theft by a U.S. Postal Service officer or employee. Brookins was arrested in December 2021, on the strength of investigative work by Verona Police Detective TJ Conroy. “I applaud him for his tenacity on this investigation and attempting to bring an end to this string of credit card thefts to numerous Verona victims,” VPD Chief Christopher Kiernan said of Conroy at the time.
From January 2021 to September 2021, Brookins was employed as a U.S. Postal Service letter carrier with delivery routes in Montclair and Verona. According to the documents filed in this case and statements made in court, Brookins admitted in court that he had stolen numerous items of mail containing credit cards addressed to individuals living at residences on his postal delivery routes, activated some of these cards and attempted to make purchases with them. He admitted that he provided some of the stolen cards to other individuals in exchange for a fee. Brookins admitted stealing more than a dozen stimulus checks in March of 2021, which were being mailed to recipients along his postal delivery routes, and to providing these checks to other individuals for a fee, knowing that these checks would be fraudulently negotiated by others.
The mail theft charge is punishable by a maximum potential penalty of five years in prison and a maximum $250,000 fine. Sentencing is scheduled for August 15, 2023.
