Postal worker pleads guilty to stealing checks from area mail

Latoya Tolbert of Oak Forest asked U.S. District Court Magistrate Judge John E. Martin this week to abort her jury trial.

A federal grand jury indicted Tolbert and Shawn Edwards of Lansing in July on charges of wire fraud. The grand jury also indicted Tolbert on a charge of theft of mail by a postal employee.

The government says Edwards approached Tolbert, a postal carrier in 2020, with a scheme to defraud an unidentified business. Edwards paid her to take advantage of her job to divert four checks to Edwards between September 2020 through February 2021.