U.S.|Postal Worker Stole Sports Memorabilia Worth $100,000, U.S. Says
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/29/us/usps-employee-guilty-sports-memorabilia-theft.html
You have a preview view of this article while we are checking your access. When we have confirmed access, the full article content will load.
A former sorting clerk at a post office in New Jersey later sold the items, including valuable Michael Jordan and Mickey Mantle trading cards, prosecutors said.
Jan. 29, 2025Updated 6:13 p.m. ET
A former Postal Service worker admitted this week that he stole valuable sports collectibles, including Michael Jordan trading cards, an autographed photo of the tennis star Rafael Nadal and a Mickey Mantle card, while he was working as a sorting clerk at a post office in New Jersey, federal prosecutors said.
The items, collectively estimated to be worth more than $100,000, were taken from parcels destined for an auction house in Clifton, N.J., and sold to individual buyers or sports collectibles stores, prosecutors said.
The former clerk, Shelby Dozier, 34, of the Bronx, pleaded guilty to a charge of theft of mail by a Postal Service employee, the U.S. attorney’s office for the District of New Jersey said in a statement on Tuesday.
The Postal Service hired Mr. Dozier in August 2022 as a sorting clerk assigned to its post office in Clifton, about 15 miles west of New York City, prosecutors said. He was one of four to eight clerks who sorted mail and packages on the day shift, they said.
While he was working there, “numerous parcels destined for a consignment auction house located in Clifton went missing,” according to a court filing in the case.
The auction house, which was not identified in court documents, specializes in the sale of trading cards and sports memorabilia that it receives from customers around the world, the U.S. attorney’s office said. Customers would typically send parcels containing trading cards or other sports memorabilia to the company’s post office box.