A former carrier for the U.S. Postal Service in Bar Harbor pleaded guilty Thursday in federal court to stealing cash and gift cards from recipients on his delivery route.
Daniel Hindes, 35, of Hancock was accused of opening letters he was supposed to deliver between late November 2019 and March 2020, according to documents filed in federal court in Bangor. He was accused of opening the letters in his delivery vehicle, stealing 17 Walmart gift cards and more than $160 in cash he found in them, and then discarding the letters and envelopes that accompanied the items into the garbage.
“The defendant then converted the cash and gift cards he had taken for his own personal use, often by making purchases at the Walmart store located in Ellsworth, Maine, or by providing the gift cards he had stolen to his spouse for her to shop there for the defendant and his family,” federal prosecutors said in court documents.