Iowa postal workers fired after undelivered mail found at their homes

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 records, “found multiple containers of undelivered mail,” as well as bottles of liquor inside two 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 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 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.

Administrative Law Judge Blair Bennett recently ruled that Keen’s testimony of being forced to resign was not credible, noting that she knew about, and had used, the union’s grievance process when the Postal Service had previously tried to fire her for unspecified reasons. Bennett denied Keen’s request for unemployment benefits.

In a separate case, Dejon Johnson, a carrier assistant for the Clinton Post Office, was placed on unpaid leave in late October pending the completion of employment-termination proceedings.

State records indicate the action was in response to three separate allegations of mail theft. According to the records, those allegations triggered an investigation that led to the Postal Service using a GPS locator and video surveillance equipment to determine Johnson had taken a customer’s package to his own home.

The records indicate the Postal Service informed Johnson in November that he was eligible for “termination pay” from Dec. 7, 2023, through Jan. 16, 2024, but that as of Jan. 17, 2024, he would no longer be employed by the agency.

Clinton Postmaster Mary Atwood said Friday that Johnson still is in the process of being fired. “It wasn’t just one package, it was several packages that were missing while in his care,” she said.

After a recent hearing on Johnson’s request for unemployment benefits, Administrative Law Judge Carly Smith ruled Johnson was ineligible for such benefits. “The employer has established (Johnson) was suspended due to theft of mail,” Smith ruled. “Theft from an employer is generally disqualifying misconduct.”

State and federal court records indicate no criminal charges have been imposed in either the Keen case or the Johnson case.

This article first appeared in the Iowa Capital Dispatch.