Investigative News Releases

CLARKSBURG, WEST VIRGINIA – Rochelle Pernell, of Fairmont, West Virginia, has admitted to obstructing mail, United States Attorney Bill Powell announced. Pernell, age 32, pled guilty to one count of “Obstruction of Mails.” Pernell admitted to taking a $500 Visa gift card after it was deposited for mail and before it was delivered to its intended recipient. The crime occurred January 27, 2017 in Marion County. Pernell was sentenced to 12 months’ probation and ordered to pay $790.00 in restitution...

BOSTON – A former postal employee was sentenced today in federal court in Boston for embezzling over $22,000 from the U.S. Postal Service (USPS). Dennis Reis, 37, of Taunton, was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Denise J. Casper to two years of probation, with the first six months to be served in home confinement, and ordered to pay restitution of $22,773. In January 2018, Reis pleaded guilty to one count of embezzlement and theft of public money, property or records. United States...

BOSTON – A former Fitchburg postal employee was sentenced today in federal court in Worcester for failing to deliver mail. Stephen Lehto, 37, was sentenced by U.S. District Court Magistrate Judge David H. Hennessy to two years of probation. In January 2018, Lehto pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor count of obstruction of mails. While working as a postal carrier for the United States Postal Service in Fitchburg between June 2016 and January 2017, Lehto began taking mail home instead of delivering it...

WASHINGTON – Former professional cyclist Lance Armstrong agreed to pay the United States $5 million to resolve a lawsuit alleging that his admitted use of performance-enhancing drugs and methods (“PEDs”) resulted in the submission of millions of dollars in false claims for sponsorship payments to the U.S. Postal Service (“USPS”), which sponsored Armstrong’s cycling team during six of the seven years Armstrong appeared to have won the Tour de France, the Department of Justice announced today....

DALLAS — Tshombe Anderson, 55, of Grand Prairie, Texas, was sentenced today by Chief U.S. District Judge Barbara M.G. Lynn to 120 months in federal prison and ordered to pay $26,572,458.93 in restitution for his role in a scheme he ran along with his family members from July 2011 to September 2015 to fraudulently obtain more than $26 million from the Department of Labor (DOL) Office of Worker’s Compensation Program (OWCP), announced U.S. Attorney Erin Nealy Cox of the Northern District of Texas...