Boston Postal Worker Pleads Guilty to Stealing Over 200 GameFly Games

[Karloff]

Boston Postal Worker Pleads Guilty to Stealing Over 200 GameFly Games

The penalty's up to five years in prison and a maximum fine of $250,000.

Former postal worker James L. White, 68, of Dorchester, Massachusetts, has pled guilty to charges of stealing over 200 GameFly games from the mail, between July and November 2012. He's due to be sentenced on May 8th, and could face to up to five years in prison followed by three years of supervised release, and a maximum fine of $250,000.

White sold the games to a local retail outlet, said US Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz's office in a statement. He was working as a mail sorter at the Boston General Mail Facility at the time, and according to PostalReporter [http://www.postal-reporter.com/blog/postal-worker-pleads-guilty-to-stealing-over-200-video-games-from-the-mail/] he passed on his ill-gotten gains to GameStop. The exact value of White's haul isn't known, but is estimated to be several thousand dollars.

This isn't the first time GameFly's been targeted by postal workers, but White's crime spree is small time stuff when compared to the Gameburglar [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/95523-Former-Postal-Worker-Stole-2200-GameFly-Games].

Source: Boston Globe [http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2014/01/29/former-postal-worker-pleads-guilty-stealing-video-games-sent-through-mail/yX1Fn2hHcOGZvvNm7bnv9K/story.html]


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[Roxas1359]

If he pawned them off to GameStop he probably got like a third of what all those games together were worth since GameStop trade ins rip you off. For example, they were gonna offer me $3 for the PS3 version of BioShock Infinite when I was gonna trade it in to them in May of last year.

 

[Yopaz]

If he pawned them off to GameStop he probably got like a third of what all those games together were worth since GameStop trade ins rip you off. For example, they were gonna offer me $3 for the PS3 version of BioShock Infinite when I was gonna trade it in to them in May of last year.

Yeah, it sounds utterly stupid to sell stolen games through Gamestop, especially considering these would be new unsealed games that could fetch near full price on eBay. He could have decreased the quantity of stolen games which would have reduced risk of discovery and probably earned as much that way.

Edit: My bad, those games would not be new and unsealed so they weren't worth as much as I initially thought. Thanks to Deathfish15 for point out that for me

 

[Deathfish15]

If he pawned them off to GameStop he probably got like a third of what all those games together were worth since GameStop trade ins rip you off. For example, they were gonna offer me $3 for the PS3 version of BioShock Infinite when I was gonna trade it in to them in May of last year.

Yeah, it sounds utterly stupid to sell stolen games through Gamestop, especially considering these would be new unsealed games that could fetch near full price on eBay. He could have decreased the quantity of stolen games which would have reduced risk of discovery and probably earned as much that way.

They aren't new and unsealed. Gamefly sends them in packages the same way Netflix does (flimsy paper envelopes). That means that selling them to Gamestop would be far less value than a normal customer trade in due to missing packaging on all the discs.



Captcha: Fire + brim stone


About right for where this guy is going....

 

[Yopaz]

If he pawned them off to GameStop he probably got like a third of what all those games together were worth since GameStop trade ins rip you off. For example, they were gonna offer me $3 for the PS3 version of BioShock Infinite when I was gonna trade it in to them in May of last year.

Yeah, it sounds utterly stupid to sell stolen games through Gamestop, especially considering these would be new unsealed games that could fetch near full price on eBay. He could have decreased the quantity of stolen games which would have reduced risk of discovery and probably earned as much that way.

They aren't new and unsealed. Gamefly sends them in packages the same way Netflix does (flimsy paper envelopes). That means that selling them to Gamestop would be far less value than a normal customer trade in due to missing packaging on all the discs.



Captcha: Fire + brim stone


About right for where this guy is going....

Ah, my mistake then. I'm not familiar with GameFly. Basically he stole items of little value and sold them for even less. Not a criminal mastermind I guess.

 

[Elfgore]

Several thousand?! Dear God, did he only take games like COD:Ghosts, BF4, and other brand new games. That's the only way you could get that much from Gamestop.

I have to wonder why he would do this though. Postal workers make a very decent wage for uneducated work. Why throw all of that away for a couple thousand?

 

[Grabehn]

Several thousand?! Dear God, did he only take games like COD:Ghosts, BF4, and other brand new games. That's the only way you could get that much from Gamestop.

I have to wonder why he would do this though. Postal workers make a very decent wage for uneducated work. Why throw all of that away for a couple thousand?

Because a lot of people go full retard over "easy" money. I don't know the pricing for Gamestops trade in, but if he sold over 200 games for an average of $10, the money would seem quite tempting to some.

 

[Zefar]

Several thousand?! Dear God, did he only take games like COD:Ghosts, BF4, and other brand new games. That's the only way you could get that much from Gamestop.

I have to wonder why he would do this though. Postal workers make a very decent wage for uneducated work. Why throw all of that away for a couple thousand?

Because a lot of people go full retard over "easy" money. I don't know the pricing for Gamestops trade in, but if he sold over 200 games for an average of $10, the money would seem quite tempting to some.

But if he had a full time job he'd probably be close to making that much a month. Maybe more, maybe a bit less. So one extra month of payment for the risk of jail? Doesn't sound all that good.


Personally though I wonder who will get the $250 000 that they might be fining him for. Also what exactly are the extra money going to go to? The company? They already got the money once. Postal service? Do they cover for these types of things?
Then we have the jail time. A possibility of 5 WHOLE year in jail for stealing 200 games? If he get 5 years you could probably just shoot someone and get a lighter punishment. Then there is also this with 3 year supervised release. Like what, you think he's gonna steal more games by working at another postal service again?

Why not give this type of punishment to people who actually harm others.

 

[Grabehn]

snip

But if he had a full time job he'd probably be close to making that much a month. Maybe more, maybe a bit less. So one extra month of payment for the risk of jail? Doesn't sound all that good.

Personally though I wonder who will get the $250 000 that they might be fining him for. Also what exactly are the extra money going to go to? The company? They already got the money once. Postal service? Do they cover for these types of things?
Then we have the jail time. A possibility of 5 WHOLE year in jail for stealing 200 games? If he get 5 years you could probably just shoot someone and get a lighter punishment. Then there is also this with 3 year supervised release. Like what, you think he's gonna steal more games by working at another postal service again?

Why not give this type of punishment to people who actually harm others.

Again, some people get a "rush" when they think of easy money, no one said it made sense at all, just like how some people can be poor (or not) and start stealing, and another might be the poorest guy on earth yet the latter wouldn't even think of stealing something, people's minds can work VERY differently sometimes.

BTW, a guy killed someone over here and he got a year, so I'm not really gonna discuss how stupid some legal systems can be.

 

[Jamash]

Then we have the jail time. A possibility of 5 WHOLE year in jail for stealing 200 games? If he get 5 years you could probably just shoot someone and get a lighter punishment. Then there is also this with 3 year supervised release. Like what, you think he's gonna steal more games by working at another postal service again?

Why not give this type of punishment to people who actually harm others.

The 5 year prison sentence won't be for stealing 200 games, it will probably be for 200 counts of stealing Federal mail (which is probably an automatic felony crime), irrespective of the contents of that mail.

GameFly aren't the victims of his crime in this scenario, it's the United States Postal Service who he stole from and in cases like this, the punishments for relatively minor crimes are often much more if you commit those crimes against the Government.

For example, the punishment for getting lost and accidentally trespassing on private property would probably be a slap on the wrists and being sent on your way, however if you get lost and accidentally trespass on a military base, the response to that same transgression will be much more severe. To use your shooting analogy, if you carelessly discharged your gun in public and winged a private citizen, you may get a few years, if you do the same thing and hit a Federal Marshall on business, then the range of charges and punishments brought against you would be much more severe.

The punishment fits the crime, although the crime isn't stealing games from GameFly.

 

[J.McMillen]

Several thousand?! Dear God, did he only take games like COD:Ghosts, BF4, and other brand new games. That's the only way you could get that much from Gamestop.

I have to wonder why he would do this though. Postal workers make a very decent wage for uneducated work. Why throw all of that away for a couple thousand?

Actually, postal workers make a pretty good wage considering you don't need a college degree. Just the ability to work hard and put up with all the crap management heaps on you. But I wouldn't say it's uneducated work, there still lots of information and policies you have to keep track of. I should know, I work for them. And that good pay is the main reason many postal employees don't steal, because getting a job that pays that well would be nearly impossible for most of them if they got fired. In the past couple of months I've turned in several gift cards that fell out of envelopes, and this week found a DS cartridge that fell out as well. None of it was worth risking my job.

 

[weirdee]

I'm surprised that GameFly doesn't have anything on the discs that identify them as Gamefly discs, although it probably has to do with their "buy it if you like it" program.