In the NYPD, they call what an Overland Park mailman did “a million dollar mistake.” Terrell Dewayne Shears, 25, threw away a long, secure career with pension and benefits to make a quick buck off a too clever by half marijuana distribution scheme. Given his youth, it was at least a two million dollar mistake.
Shears pleaded guilty to one count of possession with intent to distribute marijuana. He was sentenced to five years of probation, It could have been much worse. Others have been sentenced to prison for less. Shears seems to have benefited from the relaxation of marijuana laws across the country.
In his plea, Shears admitted that he gave addresses on his route to marijuana distributors in Arizona. They, in turn, put packages of pot in the mail with the addresses Shears gave them. As planned, Shears intercepted the packages before they reached their labeled destinations.
The scheme would seemed to have a fool-proof simplicity to it. If the packages were sniffed out, the postal authorities would have turned their attention to the person whose name was on the package, not the mailman. Upon intercepting the packages, Shears texted a fellow identified only as “John” who picked them up at a designated apartment building.
Things did not work out quite as Shears had planned. Although it might have made for an entertaining read, the authorities did not share how they managed to apprehend Shears and seize some 40 pounds of marijuana from his postal vehicle. U.S. Attorney Beall did commend the U.S. Postal Service and Special Assistant U.S. Attorney James Ward for their work on the case.
In using the mails to distribute the weed in question, mailman Shears put a new and somewhat more benign spin on the phrase “going postal.” The Associated Press has already picked up the story, and he could be enjoying an intense and seriously unpleasant fifteen minutes in the sun.
