U.S. Postal Service Manager Sentenced to More Than Eight Years for Directing a Federal Corruption and Drug Distribution Scheme

A former U.S. Postal Service (USPS) station manager was sentenced on Oct. 2, to 97 months in prison for his role directing a bribery and drug scheme in which USPS workers delivered hundreds of pounds of marijuana to individuals in the District of Columbia in exchange for cash bribes.  Acting Assistant Attorney General Kenneth A. Blanco of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division made the announcement.

Deenvaughn Rowe, 48, of Odenton, Maryland, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan.  In addition to the term of prison imposed, U.S. District Court Judge Chutkan ordered Rowe to serve four years of supervised release and to forfeit $64,000.  During the sentencing Judge Chutkan told Rowe, who had immigrated to the United States from Jamaica, “What you have done has betrayed all this country has given you.”  Last month, Judge Chutkan sentenced two of Rowe’s co-conspirators, Kendra Brantley, 32, and Alicia Norman, 39, both of Washington, D.C., to 46 months and 18 months in prison respectively, for using their positions as letter carriers to deliver boxes of marijuana.

According to the evidence presented at trial, Rowe, the then-acting manager of the River Terrace Carrier Annex, used his USPS computer to track packages containing marijuana mailed from the Western United States to the Lamond-Riggs Post Office in Washington, D.C.  The packages were typically addressed to fictitious individuals or non-existent addresses.  The evidence at trial revealed that once the packages arrived at Lamond-Riggs, Rowe coordinated the delivery of the packages with Lamond-Riggs Letter Carriers Brantley and Norman, among others, by cell phone and text message.  Brantley and Norman then delivered the boxes of marijuana on the street to men in expensive cars in exchange for cash bribes.  

This case was investigated by the USPS Office of the Inspector General’s Capital Metro Field Office and the Postal Inspection Service’s Washington Division.  Trial Attorneys Mark J. Cipolletti, Shamiso Maswoswe, Molly Gaston and Nicholas Connor of the Criminal Division’s Public Integrity Section prosecuted the case.