WAVERLY — A rural mail carrier has pleaded to charges she stole home improvement store rebates from people on her route.
Kayeleen Luloff pleaded to a charge of theft of mail by a postal service employee on Monday in U.S. District Court in Cedar Rapids. Sentencing will be at a later date. The charge carries up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
Luloff had been working for the U.S. Postal Service since 2021. Her routes included Waverly, Shell Rock and Denver.
In August and September 2022, she allegedly stole Menards rebate certificates that were mailed to six store customers. The rebates ranged in value from $25 to $283 and totaled $956, according to court records.
Luloff then used the rebate certificates when shopping in September 2022
By November 2022, authorities became suspicious. She denied taking the certificates during an interview with law enforcement. She was placed on leave and later terminated, court records state.
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Federal prosecutors charged her in May 2024 and waived indictment.
A brief history of American mail service
A brief history of American mail service
1639: Richard Fairbanks’ tavern is designated as the official repository for mail in the American colonies.
1710: The Queen Anne Act is passed
1765: The Stamp Act is passed
1775: William Goddard’s postal tenets are adopted by the Second Continental Congress
1780s & 1790s: More legislation is passed defining the U.S. Post Office Department
1802: A federal law is passed banning Black people from carrying mail for the Post Office Department
1835: The American Anti-Slavery Society uses a technicality to send pro-abolition materials as newspapers via the Post Office Department
1860-1861: The Pony Express is in operation
1863: The first Black employee of the Post Office Department is hired
1873: Censorship legislation commonly known as the Comstock Act is passed
1918: The Post Office Department begins airmail efforts
1960s: Mail backups are rampant across the U.S., causing the implementation of zip codes
1970: Post Office Department employees go on strike, resulting in the first postal unions and the reform of the Post Office Department into the U.S. Postal Service
2006: The Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act is passed
2020: The U.S. Postal Service experiences extreme mail slowdowns due to the COVID-19 pandemic
14 fun facts about your mail
1. Benjamin Franklin was the first postmaster general in U.S. history
2. The Postal Service processed and delivered 425.3 million pieces of mail per day in 2021.
3. There are more than 139,868 blue mail collection boxes in the U.S.
4. There are 31,247 Postal Service-managed retail offices.
5. The U.S. Postal Inspection Service is the law enforcement arm of USPS.
6. The U.S. Postal Service has no official motto.
7. USPS generally receives no tax dollars, and funds itself through the sale of postage and other services.
8. Contrary to popular belief, the Pony Express was never officially a part of the U.S. Postal Service.
9. The Breast Cancer Research semipostal stamp has raised more than $93.9 million for breast cancer research since 1998.
10. The Alzheimer’s semipostal has raised more than $1.2 million since 2017.
12. The United Kingdom’s iconic red mail collection boxes are called pillar boxes.
13. The United Nations has an agency called the Universal Postal Union that coordinates postal policy internationally.
14. If it were a private sector company, the Postal Service would rank 43rd in the 2021 Fortune 500.
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