Two Iowa postal workers were fired or forced to resign last year after investigators found undelivered mail at their homes.
According to federal records, Cassey Keen worked as rural associate mail carrier for the U.S. Postal Service in Central City last year. In April, the area postmaster began fielding reports of undelivered mail in the community. In May, the Postal Service officials allegedly went to Keen’s home and, according to state records, “found multiple containers of undelivered mail,” as well as bottles of liquor, inside two separate vehicles Keen used to deliver the mail. Some of the undelivered mail was at least a month old.
According to testimony given at a subsequent state hearing, postal officials went back to Keen’s home 10 days later with an official U.S. Postal Service resignation form that was partially filled out. Keen completed the form and was considered to have resigned.
But at a December 2023 hearing on Keen’s request for unemployment benefits, Keen alleged she was not in a good frame of mind when she filled out the paperwork – her husband had passed away just a few weeks before – and that she had been forced to resign.
She alleged that she was told if she refused to resign she’d never be able to work for the Postal Service again. The Postal Service disputed that allegation and stated that had Keen refused to resign, the agency would have allowed her to continue her employment.
