Postal worker charged in alleged drug ring

A North Bellmore man was one of eight U.S. postal workers who federal prosecutors allege recently stole and distributed large amounts of marijuana.

The postal employees, who work at the Logistical and Distribution Priority Mail Processing Center in Bethpage, were arrested on Dec. 2 and charged with theft of mail and conspiracy to distribute 129 pounds of marijuana over six months.

Jose Hurtado, 43, of North Bellmore, was among those arrested, officials said. Others charged include Kempleton Nash Jr., of Cambria Heights; Eugene Williams, of Brentwood; Timothy Marshall, of Far Rockaway; Jerrod Rollerson, of Hempstead; Tanicha Grenald-Allen, of Brooklyn; Sherwin Parkes, of Brooklyn; and Lloyd Johnson, of St. Albans.

Loretta Lynch, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York; Rafael Medina, the U.S. Postal Service special agent-in-charge; and James Hunt, the federal Drug Enforcement Administration’s special agent-in-charge, announced the indictment on Dec. 3. As detailed in the criminal complaint, U.S. priority mail shipping is “increasingly becoming a method of transporting and delivering controlled substances across the United States.”

In this case, officials allege that rather than telling law enforcement agents that they found suspicious packages, the defendants stole the parcels from the processing line and put them in a corridor outside the Bethpage plant, which they accessed by a fire exit door whose alarm had been disabled.

Officials said that the defendants then took the parcels from the corridor and carried them out of the building through the lobby of the adjacent business park. The defendants were also observed removing additional packages from the processing line, and attaching new labels that re-directed delivery to alternate addresses. After “over-labeling” the parcels, the postal workers reportedly reinserted the parcels into the normal line for delivery to the new destination.