"The jury said it could not reach a decision and was dismissed," said Tampa
Assistant U.S. Attorney Bob Mosakowski.
The jury had deliberated for more than 10 hours over two days in the case of
William Santiago, 52, who resigned from the post office after 27 years in
March in the midst of the junk mail flap.
Mosakowski said prosecutors had not yet decided whether they would seek a
retrial. He said U.S. District Judge H. Dale Cook had not yet declared a
mistrial because there was a motion pending, but was expected to do so.
Neither prosecutors nor Santiago's public defender disputed the gist of the
case: that Santiago took several pieces of mail for his own use while
employed at a post office in Pinellas Park, Fla. The mail included catalogs
from Victoria's Secret, a clothing firm that specializes in women's lingerie, a
movie theater guide and a True Story magazine that was addressed to a
woman who had died.
Santiago testified that he did not think he was doing anything wrong. He said
the post office had intended to throw out all of the mail he took because it
could not be delivered.
But postal authorities and government prosecutors said his actions were simple
theft. They said the prosecution was necessary to protect the integrity of
the postal service.
Santiago, who resigned just before he was to be fired, had faced up to five
years' imprisonment and a $250,000 fine on each of three counts of
embezzling postal matter entrusted to him as a carrier.
His mother was driving him to the post office to work when the accident occurred.
These absences as a result of family tragedy added up. Though he was a
veteran of Desert Storm, sustaining the Gulf War Syndrome with
commensurate disability payments, the Post Office refused to extend his FMLA
and counted absences resulting from the car accident and father's heart attack
as "unscheduled," thus, subject to discipline, which they did.
Last summer, the post office served him a letter notifying him that he would be
removed from the postal service as a result of these absences. Naturally,
the union went to bat for him, but the only thing the post office would settle for
was a "last chance agreement," which allowed only 3 unscheduled absences
in 6 months for a period of 18 months. The plant manager later
interpreted this to mean "moving" absences, a very obscure term which
means 6 months from the first unscheduled absence...... NOT from the
actual date of signing. I told her I thought this to be unfair since it wasn't fully
explained to me or the grievant, especially (I told her) since he had faced
multiple family tragedies, besides suffering from the Gulf War Syndrome
and injured legs from the war. I told her just last week I thought the postal
service was totally out of line and unfair in Joel's case, because he had
risked his life for his country and gets nothing but harassment in return?
They had charged him with AWOL when the traffic accident happened because
he was unconscious in the hospital and unable to call in. I told her
that this was ridiculous! She only could reply that "being regular in attendance"
was all that was required. I rebutted that what if tragedy struck
her family; especially after serving your country with honor in a foreign war
and suffering permanent injury?????
I strongly replied there's no standard, no yardstick to go by if every manager and
supervisor who comes in sets their own rules and arbitrarily disciplines
whoever they please. There's so much more I argued with her about the
attendance policy or lack thereof. But it was like howling at the moon!
They never listen.
Then the snow this week. Joel realized this was it. Fayetteville was snowed in;
wrecks all over town. He lived on one of the steepest hills and couldn't make
it down. The postmaster, Linda Patrick (the one who sued our 4 local &
national unions + 6 local union leaders, then sued the postmaster general),
sent a directive to all her supervisors that anyone who called in because of the
snow would not be allowed emergency annual but would be counted as AWOL,
subject to severe discipline. The floor supervisors, I understand, pled with her to
change her mind, which she did for the Thursday ONLY, but not
the Friday and Saturday when we received 3 more inches on top the 7.
(Since Fayetteville is VERY mountainous, the highway patrol and city police
actually closed the highways down; postal service trucks did not make it in for
most of the 2 days. In other words, there was no mail to work anyway, even if
the people could make it to work. But that didn't convince some in management
of course.) So, Saturday night, Joel called in for the last time.
He realized he would be fired because of this one last call.... but he had the
courtesy to call anyway. He asked the 204B if he could take emergency
annual. I can only assume the 204B had to follow Postmistress Patrick's orders
and tell him that it would not be allowed, that he would be counted as AWOL.
that could have been the last straw. A few minutes later, he drew the revolver
and shot himself. What we had feared about tension on the workroom floor as
a consequence of autocratic, insensitive management has surely come to
pass. We did our best to stop it, but postal upper management poo-pooed us
all the way and claimed we just imagined everything. They sent the postmaster
back to Fayetteville without even the courtesy of notifying the unions. The
former district manager, Ranft, claimed in writing that I had just "exaggerated"
the whole situation here in Fayetteville, and then he lied about the Threat
Assessment Team's evaluation (July 1998) and the Crisis Management Assessment
taken in the spring of 1998.
You may wish to send cards & flowers to his home:
We are all postal workers, current and former, and these organizations are not.
We're simply trying to protest the workplace mistreatment, and the inhumane
treatment is everyone's protest.
Condolences to the family of Joel Garriott of Fayeteville,AR can be sent at the
address above: We need the complaints of all current and former postal workers
in your workplace to be heard in Washington DC.
Please pass this announcement around to other concerned citizens.
PROJECT ONE VOICE
http://www.geocities.com/project_one_voice
A federal jury convicted John Murillo on Friday of transporting a threat across state
lines. Prosecutors said the Internet message, even though it was sent to a friend
who lived across town in Laredo, actually passed through Tennessee, Georgia
and New Jersey before reaching its destination.
"They are trying everything to make me go postal," the message reads in part. "This
Mexican can only take so much. You kick a dog so much and sooner or later
that chain will snap. I have been very patient with them but I am tired and making
plans. ... judgment day will come. It will be a shootout at the O.K. Corral."
During the five-day trial, prosecutor Mary Lou Castillo portrayed Murillo, 48,
as an enraged, alcoholic loner who is dangerously close to a psychological
collapse, the Laredo Morning Times reported.
"We don't have to wait until the chain snaps to charge him," Castillo told the jury
during closing arguments Friday. The trial included testimony by Murillo's friends
and former co-workers, including William Espinoza, who was the recipient of
the message. Espinoza turned the message over to postal inspectors.
Espinoza testified that he was "shocked" when he received the message at about 3
a.m. on April 18. Under cross-examination, he admitted that he laughed when he
read the e-mail.Public defender Juan R. Flores told jurors that the case was
about freedom of speech. Murillo agreed and said he never planned to take any
action against the postal service or its employees. Still, he conceded that his message
could have angered postal service officials.
"I don't even have a gun or nothing," Murillo said after jurors announced their
verdict. "But governments have been brought down just by words and I was putting
out a lot of words."
The former postal service employee also claimed his e-mail message was doctored
before it was presented in court. "They took out some of the stuff that would have
shown that I was joking," Murillo said.Murillo is scheduled to be sentenced
early next year.
