CAPE GIRARDEUA, Mo (News First) – A former U.S. Postal Service mail carrier in southeast Missouri who both stole and failed to deliver customers’ mail was sentenced Tuesday to 14 months in prison. 34-year-old Robert Gafford was also ordered to pay a $5,000 fine. The man from Jackson was convicted by a jury in U.S. District Court in Cape Girardeau in February of one count of delaying or destroying mail and one count of embezzlement of mail.
Gafford worked out of the Cape Girardeau Post Office annex and was responsible for delivering mail on a rural route in or near Scott City. In late 2021, the postmaster received complaints from a couple on Gafford’s route that they were not receiving mail and packages. The couple have Informed Delivery, a Postal Service program that provides pictures of the mail that is scheduled to be delivered that day. The couple sent postal officials images of missing mail. There were days when their mail was not delivered and officials found it at the Post Office and days in which the mail could not be located. When confronted by supervisors and told he must deliver the mail, Gafford said he did not like the location of the victims’ mailbox. He was also issued a written warning.
Frustrated when their mail was still not being delivered, the couple mailed an Apple AirTag tracking device to themselves and traced it to Gafford’s home after it wasn’t delivered. A special agent with the Postal Service Office of Inspector General then sent a test piece of mail with a tracking device. Investigators watched as Gafford stopped at his personal vehicle before leaving post office property in his mail vehicle that day. They also independently tracked Gafford’s postal vehicle as he skipped the couple’s mailbox. They tracked the test piece to Gafford’s personal vehicle after he left for the day, then pulled him over and seized the test piece and the couple’s other undelivered mail from his SUV’s glove box, the trial showed.
Gafford’s refusal to deliver the victims’ mail and eventual theft of their mail lasted months, despite postal officials’ “extraordinary efforts to simply get Gafford to do his job,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Paul Hahn wrote in a sentencing memo. “The victims of Gafford’s months-long failure to deliver their mail endured constant apprehension of not receiving their mail, including packages ordered from Amazon, a victim’s operator’s license from the Missouri Department of Revenue, and other mail.”
The memo says Gafford continued to steal mail after the jury’s verdict. In early 2024, the postmaster reported receiving complaints about missing mail from residents on Dalhousie Drive in Cape Girardeau according to the sentencing memo. The postmaster and the mail carrier for that route placed an AirTag in a package and monitored the package. On April 23rd, 2024, the package disappeared and the postmaster traced it to Gafford’s home. A court-approved search on May 2nd, revealed the package, and two Arrow keys, which unlock post office collection boxes, cluster boxes and other locks.
