SACRAMENTO, Calif. — United States Attorney Benjamin B. Wagner announced today that AUDRY MAE SIMMONS, 57, of Sacramento, pleaded guilty today to embezzlement and theft charges before United States Magistrate Judge Dale A. Drozd.

This case is the product of an investigation by the United States Postal Service’s Office of the Inspector General.

According to Assistant United States Attorney Michelle Rodriguez, who is prosecuting the case, between November 1, 2008 and January 16, 2009, SIMMONS stole the cash reserve of the Perkins Station Post Office, located at 9500 Kiefer Blvd., in Sacramento. The cash reserve was entrusted to SIMMONS in order for her to provide change to counter postal clerks she supervised. SIMMONS incrementally stole the cash reserve, totaling $3,999.50, and then falsified documents to cover her theft and embezzlement. This morning SIMMONS admitted that from early November 2008 through January 2009 she used the U.S. currency in the cash reserve to make personal expenditures and to pay non-governmental expenses. SIMMONS had been employed by the U.S. Post Office since October 1986 and, at the time of her theft,
SIMMONS was the Customer Services Supervisor of Sacramento’s Perkins Station Post Office.

SIMMONS was convicted of one misdemeanor count of theft and one misdemeanor count of embezzlement of postal funds during the performance of her duties. She is scheduled to be sentenced on March 2, 2010. The maximum penalty for each offense is one year in prison, a one-year term of supervised release, and a fine of up to $100,000. The actual sentence, however, will be determined at the discretion of the court after consideration of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, which take into account a number of variables and any applicable statutory sentencing factors.

source: U.S. Attorney’s Office