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An Indianapolis man was sentenced to more than six years in federal prison for committing an armed carjacking of a United States Postal Service truck in June 2022.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Indiana announced Monday that Robert Powell, 23, will serve 79 months in prison, followed by three years of supervised release.
“Letter carriers should not have to live in fear of gun violence simply for doing their jobs,” said John Childress, Acting U. S. Attorney for the Southern District of Indiana, said in a news release. “Americans should not have to fear that their important financial documents will be stolen and exploited by fraudsters who wreak financial havoc. The serious federal prison sentence in this case demonstrates that there will be serious consequences for violence against public servants and fraud against the public.”
According to court documents, on June 15, 2022, a U.S. Postal Service worker was delivering mail at an apartment complex in Avon when Powell approached them wearing a mask and displaying a firearm.
He allegedly ordered the worker to get out of the truck and leave their belongings behind.
Once in possession of the truck, Powell drove it out of the complex and traveled a mile down the road to meet up with another person waiting in a Mazda 6 sedan.
Another mail carrier in the area saw the truck, knew something was wrong, and followed Powell as he pulled over to meet with the sedan.
The second carrier saw Powell and another person take mail and packages from the truck and load them into the sedan.
Powell and the second person noticed the mail carrier watching them and left the scene, leaving the stolen postal truck behind.
Over the course of the investigation, U.S. Postal inspectors discovered that Powell used his Facebook page to solicit bank account information from other users, even trying to pull a USPS mail carrier into his plans, according to court documents.
In doing this, Powell was committing a type of fraud called card cracking, a practice where someone convinces individuals to share their bank account information in order to use their account to deposit fraudulent checks.
These checks are obtained either by stealing mail or purchasing stolen checks from other criminals.
The checks are altered and then deposited into the individual’s account, where it’s withdrawn as quickly as possible.
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