Mailman Facing 40 Years in Prison for Delivering Marijuana to Customers

A former United States Postal Service employee in Baltimore pleaded guilty to selling marijuana along his mail route. William McRae reportedly delivered marijuana to customers along his route, which covered a portion of West Baltimore.

According to investigators, McRae delivered over 220 pounds of marijuana while he was trafficking along his mail route.

Law enforcement was first tipped off to the operation when they discovered that 200 suspicious packages were shipped from California to the same zip code in Baltimore, with all of the packages destined for McRae’s route, CBS reported.

Police followed McRae on his route while investigating the packages, and eventually saw him passing a package to his accomplice, Michael Gray, on the corner of West Lombard and Mount Streets.

Instead of delivering the packages to what ended up being phony addresses on the packages, McRae would drop the packages with Gray, who would then distribute the contents on the streets. After learning of the operation, police continued to conduct surveillance, collecting a significant amount of evidence before obtaining arrest warrants.

Aside from the few slip-ups that led to the exposure of the operation, McRae and Gray’s plan was a creative and successful one. A mail carrier is the perfect cover, as there is very little chance that they would be pulled over and searched. Also, address the packages to other people gave the mail carrier some plausible deniability.

McRae is facing up to 40 years in prison for the crime and is due to be sentenced on July 15. Meanwhile, Gray faces just 20 years and is scheduled for sentencing in November. Gray has plead guilty to conspiracy to distribute marijuana.

Earlier this year, Baltimore City State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby announced that marijuana possession cases would no longer be prosecuted in the city.

However, in this case, the issue is complicated because of the large volumes of cannabis that McRaw was selling, as well as his use of a federal job to carry out the sales. Although cannabis is becoming legal and penalties are loosening up in some areas, including Baltimore, federal agencies still have a zero tolerance attitude when it comes to the plant. However, there is not much difference between what these men are accused of and what legal dispensaries across the Baltimore area do with the state’s permission.

A new industry is developing across the country that is helping some companies get rich, but only if they have the millions of dollars required to get off the ground and pay the necessary licensing fees. It is possible that the mail carrier and his accomplice will now spend a large portion of the rest of their lives in jail simply because they were involved with the distribution of a plant that has been proven to be safer than alcohol and most, if not all, painkilling pharmaceuticals.