EX-POSTAL WORKER WHO DELIVERED POT SENTENCED

Evelyn Ramona Price didn’t just deliver catalogs on her Boca Raton mail route, authorities said. The former U.S. Postal Service carrier was sentenced Tuesday to house arrest after she pleaded guilty in July to taking bribes to deliver drugs, court records show.

Price, a 54-year-old Deerfield Beach resident, received one year of house arrest and five years of probation and was ordered to perform 500 hours of community service. She could have gone to prison for 15 years and paid a fine of $250,000.

Court records say federal authorities questioned Price in October 2016 after she delivered a package addressed to a woman who didn’t live at the listed address in The Oaks at Boca Raton, on Clint Moore Road between State Road 7 and Lyons Road.

They say Price admitted to meeting a man named “Steve” that June, and that he offered her $50 for every package she delivered either for him or to him. She said “Steve” would alert her that the morning packages were expected at the post office, and the two would meet at either at a veterinary hospital or a grocery store near her route in ZIP code 33496, along Yamato Road between State Road 7 and Military Trail.

Records show that Price told investigators that while she never was told what was inside, “I figured it was some kind of drugs, but I don’t know what drugs.”

She said she delivered either one or two packages a month that summer, collecting about $500 in payoffs.

But things went sour on Oct. 27, 2016. She tried to deliver a package in The Oaks, but the neighborhood’s business office wouldn’t accept it because of the name to which it was addressed. Also, the return address was New York City but the postmark was from California.

Court records say Price told investigators she was supposed to deliver four packages to “Steve” that morning at the veterinary hospital, but he called off the meeting and told her to deliver the packages to the addresses on them. Three were to locations where no one would accept the packages, and the fourth was the one that was stopped at The Oaks.

The four packages turned out to contain a combined 20 pounds of marijuana, authorities said. The identity of “Steve” is not disclosed in the sentencing documents.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office confirmed Wednesday that Price had no previous arrests and had worked for the Postal Service for 22 years before she resigned Nov. 14, 2016.

“This type of alleged behavior within the Postal Service is not tolerated, and the overwhelming majority of Postal Service employees ... would never consider engaging in any type of criminal behavior,” the Postal Service said.