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Published on
Thursday, January 30, 2025
By the A.M. Costa Rica staff and wire services
Former
U.S. Postal Service employee with the last
name of Morris Sr. (65) and his son
namesake Morris Jr. ( 41) both from
Inglewood, California, were sentenced to
seven years and 12.5 years in prison,
respectively, for stealing $5.1 million in
postal money order forms and distributing
them to co-conspirators.
Both
men allegedly spent part of the funds on a
lavish lifestyle while living as tourists
in Costa Rica.
After
a trial in January 2024, a federal jury
convicted both defendants of conspiracy
and bank fraud charges, finding that
Morris Sr. stole the postal money order
forms from a post office he supervised and
his son Morris Jr. distributed those money
orders to co-defendants.
According
to the U.S. Attorney's Office, eight other
defendants were previously sentenced in
the Southern District of California for
converting the stolen money orders to cash
by depositing them at banks throughout the
United States.
Several
co-conspirators testified at trial that
Morris Jr. repeatedly provided them with
money orders and counterfeit driver’s
licenses, which they used to open bank
accounts to deposit the money orders and
quickly withdraw the cash.
They also testified that Morris Jr. joined them for out-of-state trips to convert the money orders to cash—testimony corroborated by airline records—and that he collected most of the cash proceeds.
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