Man charged after USPS employee pistol-whipped, robbed outside post office
by WSYX staff
The FBI charged a Westerville man Thursday with stealing a mail key and taking other people’s mail.
Charging documents say the United States Postal Inspection Service and the FBI have been investigating a series of violent, armed robberies where USPS employees are held at gunpoint for their arrow keys which allow access to secured mailboxes.
There have been at least 25 robberies fitting that description between January 5, 2022, and May 11, 2023, investigators said.
Last month, two men were arrested by federal agents in connection to an armed robbery of a mail carrier on Sawmill Road.
Federal agents executed a search warrant at a house in the 6800 block of Willoughby Court in Westerville on May 18, where they said recovered a mail key in the room of 19-year-old Cameron Newton.
Court documents said the key was reported stolen on May 11 after the armed robbery of a USPS employee outside the post office at 2873 West Broad Street.
The employee was pistol-whipped with a handgun. Columbus police told WSYX last week that a person was injured but treated at the scene.
Agents also reportedly found:
- A plastic trash bag containing more than 100 pieces of mail addressed to other people.
- Several Visa money cards.
- A scanner with printed checks belonging to others.
- A box containing more than 100, mostly blank, checks.
- A black handgun.
- Numerous checks stuffed inside a toilet bowl in two bathrooms.
Newton was charged with Theft/Unlawful Possession of a Postal Key and Mail Theft.
He was taken to the Butler County Jail, where he will await a detention hearing in federal court set for Monday.
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