Assistant U. S. Attorney Eric R. Olah (619) 546-7540
NEWS RELEASE SUMMARY – May 23, 2022
SAN DIEGO – U.S. Postal Service employee Dewayne Morris Sr. and his son and namesake are charged in federal court with multiple felony counts of bank fraud and conspiracy in connection with the theft of $5 million in Postal money order forms.
Morris Sr. is charged along with his son, Dewayne Morris Jr., and four others, with conspiring to convert the stolen money order forms into cash.
According to the indictment, Morris Sr., then a supervisor for post offices in Venice, Playa del Rey, and Marina del Rey, ordered and received 10,000 blank Postal money order forms. A subsequent audit revealed that approximately 5,100 of those 10,000 money order forms were missing. With a maximum value of $1,000 per money order, the potential value of the missing money order forms is $5.1 million. Contrary to Morris Sr.’s claim to investigators that he properly returned some of the 10,000 money order forms, the indictment alleges that his son, Morris Jr., distributed the missing money orders to co-conspirators.
The indictment further alleges that the money orders Morris Jr. distributed to co-conspirators were materially altered to appear as if they had been paid for and lawfully issued by a post office, when in fact they had not. Morris Jr. also provided co-conspirators with counterfeit driver’s licenses bearing fictious identities. The co-conspirators used those counterfeit documents to open checking...
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