Greenbelt, Maryland – Virgil E. Ball, age 59, of Waldorf, Maryland, pleaded guilty today to embezzlement from the U.S. Postal Service.

The guilty plea was announced by United States Attorney for the District of Maryland Rod J. Rosenstein and Special Agent in Charge Paul Bowman of the U.S. Postal Service, Office of Inspector General, Capital Metro Area Field Office.

According to statements made in court at Ball’s plea hearing, in 2008, Virgil E. Ball was a registry cage clerk at the United States Postal Service’s (USPS) Southern Maryland Distribution and Processing Center in Capitol Heights, Maryland. One of Ball’s duties involved taking sealed deposit bags collected from various post offices in southern Maryland and combining them – unopened – into a larger deposit bag that was delivered by armored car to a bank used by the USPS. Ball compiled a shipping manifest by scanning the bar code on each post office deposit envelope he received, which was included with the deposit envelopes in the larger deposit bag picked up by the armored car. Ball also manually completed and signed a checklist showing from which post offices he had received deposits.

On October 24, 2008, Ball scanned all envelopes he received that day and filled out and signed a separate form showing that he had received the day’s deposits from those same post offices. However, Ball did not include the deposit envelopes from three separate post offices in the deposit bag picked up by the armored car, instead keeping those envelopes for himself. The three deposit envelopes Ball kept contained $34,178 in cash and $9,043.22 in checks, for a total loss to the government of $43,221.

Ball faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison, followed by three years of supervised release, and a fine of $250,000. U.S. District Judge Alexander Williams, Jr. has scheduled his sentencing for October 31 , 2012, at 9:30 a.m.

United States Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein commended the U.S. Postal Service, Office of Inspector General for its work in the investigation. Mr. Rosenstein thanked Assistant United States Attorney Adam K. Ake and Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Gregory Bailey, of the U.S. Justice Department, Tax Division, who are prosecuting the case.

source: U.S Attorney’s Office for Maryland District