ST. LOUIS — A 21-year-old woman was sentenced Monday for her role in a stolen mail fraud scheme in St. Louis County.
Tyra Robinson of Hillsdale, Missouri, was sentenced to a year in prison and ordered to repay more than $10,000 to her victims for her role in the scheme.
According to a press release from United States Attorney of the Eastern District of Missouri Sayler Fleming, Robinson would deposit counterfeit checks ranging from $4,000 to $10,000 into bank accounts. She would then withdraw the money from the accounts before the banks discovered the checks were fraudulent.
The release said the information used on the counterfeit checks came from checks stolen from the U.S. mail.
The release said Robinson also recruited other bank account holders to let them deposit the money into their accounts. The release said she recruited people on Facebook and Instagram by promising them kickbacks in the scheme.
She was arrested last March after fleeing from police and crashing her car. St. Louis police found more than $11,000 in cash and multiple bank cards and checks in names other than her own at the time of the arrest.
In April of 2022, 5 On Your Side reported on the thefts using arrow keys to unlock mailboxes and take checks and other mail to steal identities.
“Mail theft right now is out of control. That’s not an exaggeration. It’s absolutely out of control,” Frank Albergo, president of the Postal Police Officer’s Association, said at the time.
The case was investigated by the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department.
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