Hit with new charges,Postal mail driver admits taking drugs from mail

MOBILE, Ala. — A Conecuh County man who whose federal mail theft trial ended in a hung jury last month did an abrupt about-face today after prosecutors presented him with new evidence.
Derek Wayne Reed was supposed to go on trial again this month for theft of the mail. Instead, he pleaded guilty to the fourth count in a superceding indictment handed down last week -- theft or receipt of stolen mail.
“All the new counts referenced either new times or specific times,” defense attorney Bill Scully said.
Reed, who worked as a driver for a contractor hired to move mail among postal facilities, admitted that he stole 90 hydrocodone pills from the mail stream at the Monroeville post office in July. Authorities have said they began investigating after veterans complained they did not receive prescription medication from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
The indictment accused Reed of taking prescription drugs three other times from the Evergreen post office — May 21, June 10 and June 16.
Under advisory sentencing guidelines, Reed would have been eligible for probation if he had been convicted under the original indictment. Now, though, he could be facing stiffer punishment.
Scully said prosecutors may seek to hold Reed accountable for the other incidents in the indictment under a provision known as “relevant conduct.”
Scully said he does not know what his client’s punishment might be under the guidelines.
“I’m hopeful that it won’t bee too much more, obviously,” he said.
At the trial last month, prosecutors showed a surveillance video they contended showed Reed moving package of Lortab from a bin to his truck in May at the Evergreen post office. Scully argued that it is impossible to tell from the video what the package contained.
According to a statement that Reed signed, the defendant admitted that he took a package at another time and that it contained pills.
Reed took the witness stand and denied that he had confessed to stealing mail. He said that he acknowledged to investigators that he sold pills to a man in Grove Hill but added that they did not come from the post office.