Postal Worker

A US Postal Service worker has been sentenced to nine months in jail after admitting to hitting and killing a jogger with his postal service truck. John Cahill of Braintree pleaded guilty on Monday to negligent motor vehicle homicide, speeding, and a marked lanes violation in the August 2009 death of James Zupkofska, 45, a Norfolk County sheriff’s deputy, who was struck about a block from his Weymouth home and died at a hospital. Cahill, 50, was sentenced to 2 1/2 years, with nine months to serve and the balance suspended for five years.

A postal worker says a mysterious leaking package from Yemen has left him seriously ill, but the U.S. Postal Service denies the package ever existed. The Florida Center for Investigative Reporting, in a story printed in Sunday's Miami Herald and The Ledger of Lakeland, reported ( http://hrld.us/M9QapW) that Jeffrey A. Lill suffers from extreme fatigue, tremors, and liver and neurological problems. The symptoms are consistent with toxic exposure, problems that he said began after he handled the leaking package on Feb. 4, 2011.

By Jessica Bartlett, Town Correspondent A 52-year-old Mattapan man driving a postal vehicle on Commerce Drive in Braintree was pinned from the waist down after crashing into a tractor-trailer truck parked on the side of the road at 8:30 p.m. Thursday. According to police, the driver of the vehicle was pinned under the dashboard and had to be extricated by firefighters before being transported to South Shore Hospital for non-life-threatening injuries. He was conscious and alert during the lengthy extrication.

Nelson and Janet Hallahan were known around working-class Peoria, Ill., for their wealth, and flashed it. That, residents said, may have helped make their get-rich-quick scheme all the more believable. Their scheme was anything but real. They had bilked investors out of $1.2 million and were destined for two prison cells. Except, just before they were supposed to report to jail, the couple skipped town 12 years ago. They were finally captured Saturday in a sleepy Arizona desert town, where they lived in separate homes, introduced each other as friends, not spouses, did odd jobs...

MONTGOMERY, Ala. - A 29-year-old postal employee was charged with two counts of attempted murder yesterday after authorities said he used two guns to fire shots inside the main post office in Alabama's capital city. No one was injured in the shootings Thursday night. Officials weren't disclosing a motive or whether the employee was targeting any specific employee. Officials said the employee, Arthur Lee Darby Jr., was in Montgomery County Jail with bond set at $1 million.

A postal worker says a mysterious leaking package from Yemen has left him seriously ill, but the U.S. Postal Service denies the package ever existed. The Florida Center for Investigative Reporting, in a story printed in Sunday's Miami Herald and The Ledger of Lakeland, reported ( http://hrld.us/M9QapW) that Jeffrey A. Lill suffers from extreme fatigue, tremors, and liver and neurological problems. The symptoms are consistent with toxic exposure, problems that he said began after he handled the leaking package on Feb. 4, 2011.

A 43-year-old US Postal Service worker was arrested by Manchester, N.H., police this morning after a group of parents filed a report claiming that he spanked a 10-year-old boy whom he let play inside his postal truck, police said. Frank Saucier of Tyngsborough, Mass.,was arrested around 9 a.m. and is being held on $5,000 cash bail on a charge of simple assault for spanking the boy, police said. Police said they are investigating further. "We're looking at behavior since September of last year," Manchester Police Sergeant Craig Rousseau...

ROCHESTER, N.Y. — Gilbert Herrick says he never got married because he never met the right woman — until he turned 98. Now 99, the World War II veteran and retired postal worker from western New York recently married 86-year-old Virginia Hartman, a widow who raised five children. Herrick told the Democrat and Chronicle of Rochester that their first encounter was in 2010 in a hall at Monroe Community Hospital, the nursing home where they both live. After that, he started visiting her every day. Herrick said they wanted to share a room, but the facility’s rules...

The Vermont Supreme Court says two state police troopers can be held liable for an elderly Marlboro woman's death from hypothermia in 2007. The Burlington Free Press reports ( http://bfpne.ws/sU4MSc) that the court on Wednesday reversed a lower court's decision dismissing a lawsuit brought by the estate of Gladys Kennery. Kennery's daughter asked police in March 2007 to check on her mother to make sure she had returned home from an appointment. Two troopers responded, but checked the wrong house.

ANCHORAGE - An Alaska senator says the US Postal Service is resuming a program allowing volunteers to respond to letters sent to Santa Claus in care of the North Pole, Alaska, post office. Republican US Senator Lisa Murkowski said yesterday that Deputy Postmaster General Pat Donahoe told her in a phone call the agency has reconsidered its decision to not allow volunteers to answer the letters. The program was suspended over privacy concerns. Calls to the Postal Service were not immediately returned.

A 43-year-old US Postal Service worker was arrested by Manchester, N.H., police this morning after a group of parents filed a report claiming that he spanked a 10-year-old boy whom he let play inside his postal truck, police said. Frank Saucier of Tyngsborough, Mass.,was arrested around 9 a.m. and is being held on $5,000 cash bail on a charge of simple assault for spanking the boy, police said. Police said they are investigating further. "We're looking at behavior since September of last year," Manchester Police Sergeant Craig Rousseau said.

A former US Postal Service employee pleaded guilty in federal court Thursday to drug distribution charges, the US attorney's office said. Sean Williamson, 42, who worked out of the Somerville Post Office, teamed with at least one other employee to distribute cocaine, US Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz's office said. The pair were caught on video and audio recordings conducting drug transactions on several occasions in 2011, Ortiz's office said. Williamson faces up to 20 years in prison. He is to be sentenced July 17.

Two children who were found living in a stench-filled abandoned school bus near Houston, its windows blocked and the lot around it covered in trash, are in the custody of Texas child welfare workers, officials said Thursday. A postal worker discovered the children, ages 11 and 5, at the bus in Splendora about 10 a.m. Wednesday, officials said. Their parents are believed to be in prison for embezzling money from Hurricane Ike victims in 2008. The children are not enrolled at local schools.

MONTGOMERY, Ala. - A 29-year-old postal employee was charged with two counts of attempted murder yesterday after authorities said he used two guns to fire shots inside the main post office in Alabama's capital city. No one was injured in the shootings Thursday night. Officials weren't disclosing a motive or whether the employee was targeting any specific employee. Officials said the employee, Arthur Lee Darby Jr., was in Montgomery County Jail with bond set at $1 million.

The Vermont Supreme Court says two state police troopers can be held liable for an elderly Marlboro woman's death from hypothermia in 2007. The Burlington Free Press reports ( http://bfpne.ws/sU4MSc) that the court on Wednesday reversed a lower court's decision dismissing a lawsuit brought by the estate of Gladys Kennery. Kennery's daughter asked police in March 2007 to check on her mother to make sure she had returned home from an appointment. Two troopers responded, but checked the wrong house.

WASHINGTON - The US Postal Service, expecting about $9 billion in losses this year amid slumping mail volume, is still paying thousands of its workers millions of dollars each year to do nothing. Longstanding labor agreements with the largest postal unions prohibit the Postal Service from laying off or reassigning workers because of broken equipment or periods of low mail volume. Instead, some idled employees report for work and are instructed to sit in a break room or cafeteria and do nothing.

ANCHORAGE - Starry-eyed children writing letters to the jolly man at the North Pole this holiday season will probably not get a response from Santa Claus or his helpers. The US Postal Service is dropping a popular national program begun in 1954 in the small Alaska town of North Pole, where volunteers open and respond to thousands of letters addressed to Santa each year. Replies come with North Pole postmarks. Last year, a postal worker in Maryland recognized an Operation Santa volunteer there as a registered sex offender.

By Jessica Bartlett, Town Correspondent A 52-year-old Mattapan man driving a postal vehicle on Commerce Drive in Braintree was pinned from the waist down after crashing into a tractor-trailer truck parked on the side of the road at 8:30 p.m. Thursday. According to police, the driver of the vehicle was pinned under the dashboard and had to be extricated by firefighters before being transported to South Shore Hospital for non-life-threatening injuries. He was conscious and alert during the lengthy extrication.