text: La Porte County mail carrier accused of not delivering thousands of pieces of mail. // WSBT 22 photo 
   
   Many of us depend on the postal service to deliver critical information, but what happens if your mail carrier doesn't deliver? 
   
   In La Porte County, about 17,000 pieces of mail never made it to the intended destination. 
   
   WSBT 22 reported Tuesday night that there's now a warrant out for a former mail carrier's arrest. 
   
   Kristopher Block of LaPorte worked for the post office from 2015 to 2017. 
   
   In that time, court records obtained by WSBT 22 allege he didn't deliver thousands of pieces of mail. He's now facing charges of felony Official Misconduct and misdemeanor Theft. 
   
   Many days,the LaPorte Post Office is busy with mail coming in and out all day long. 
   
   According to court records, for about six months in late 2016 to early 2017, a lot of mail never made it to its destination. 
   
   Inclduing destinations like, longtime LaPorte resident, Wally Bass's home. 
   
   “At least two to three times a week, we wouldn't get no mail and I knew that we had mail that was supposed to come, bills and different stuff,” said Bass. 
   
   Court records show in February of 2017, tubs containing frozen mail were found in a ravine in New Buffalo. 
   
   Those pieces were tracked back to the LaPorte Post Office and, at the time, mail carrier Kristopher Block's assigned routes. 
   
   The documents say Block admitted to a detective with the post office that he paid a friend $50 to burn mail he didn't have time to deliver on a “regular basis.” 
   
   Bass says he's had things like worker's comp checks go missing. 
   
   “It's a crap-shoot whether you are going to get your mail or not," he said. "Finally, we just got tired of it and we got a P.O. box." 
   
   Records show, postal service special agents found 11,000 pieces of mail in tubs in New Buffalo and when those agents went to Block's home, they found about 6,000 more. 
   
   WSBT 22 also went to Block's home, but no one answered the door. 
   
   Bass says he's happy the mail was found. He hopes something like this doesn't happen again. 
   
   “I’d like to be able to have my mail delivered back to my house everyday where I don't have to pay for a P.O. box,” said Bass. 
   
   WSBT 22 spoke to an official from the U.S. Postal Service, Office of Inspector General who provided the following statement: 
   
   “The vast majority of U.S. Postal Service personnel are dedicated, hard-working public servants dedicated to moving mail to its proper destination who would never consider engaging in any form of criminal behavior. This type of alleged behavior within the Postal Service is not tolerated and when a postal employee betrays that trust of the American people, the special agents in the U.S. Postal Service, Office of Inspector General vigorously investigate these matters as we did in this instance and work with other law enforcement agencies and local, state and federal prosecutors to hold accountable those employees who violate that public trust. Anyone can contact the USPS OIG Hotline at 1-888-USPS-OIG (1-888-877-7644) or file a complaint online at www.uspsoig.gov to report alleged fraud, waste of funds or resources, mail theft and other postal crimes committed by postal employees or contractors.” 
   
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   U.S. Postal Service mail vehicles sit in a parking lot at a mail distribution center on February 18, 2015 in San Francisco, California. (Photo: Justin Sullivan, Getty Images) 
   
   An Indiana mail carrier who is accused of paying a man to throw away 11,000 pieces of mail in another state and of hiding another 6,000 pieces at home is now facing criminal charges. 
   
   Kristopher Block, 39, of LaPorte, was charged Tuesday in LaPorte Circuit Court with a felony for official misconduct and a misdemeanor for theft, according to online court documents. 
   
   A warrant for his arrest has been issued, but online jail records indicate that Block has not yet been taken into custody. 
   
   An investigation by the U.S. Postal Service began when a deputy with the Berrien County Sheriff’s Office in Michigan found multiple tubs of standard, undelivered mail in a ravine in February 2017. Authorities dug up the frozen mail bundles and transported them to the LaPorte Post Office. 
   
   Court documents said that additional investigation revealed that the mail originated from the U.S Post Office branch in LaPorte, and that Block was the assigned carrier. 
   
   When first speaking to police, Block said he was not involved in the destruction of the mail. When he was later shown 150 pieces of the recovered mail, court documents quote him as saying, "Looks like I’m going to jail." 
   
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   Block told police that he took home mail he couldn’t deliver before the end of his shift and paid a friend of his $50 per bundle to burn it in Michigan, court documents said. 
   
   Court documents say Block told investigators that the first time he gave up mail to be destroyed, he was far behind delivering his route in a timely manner. 
   
   Block told police he would just give his roommate one bundle at a time to burn and admitted that he would unload the bundles on his lunch break. 
   
   Block added that this went on for months dating back to summer 2016. Court documents said that after being questioned by police, he went to the post of office to turn in about 6,000 pieces of mail that he did not deliver and was keeping in his home. 
   
   Block resigned from his job at the post office on Feb. 7, 2017. 
   
   Police later determined that an estimated 11,000 pieces were recovered from the ravine in Michigan. 
   
   According to court documents, police have not yet located Block's accomplice. The other man has also not been formally charged with a crime at this time, according to online court reocrds. 
   
   Call IndyStar reporter Justin L. Mack at (317) 444-6138. Follow him on Twitter: @justinlmack. 
   
   Read or Share this story: https://indy.st/2qqg6Gy ||||| A letter carrier based in La Porte, Indiana, has resigned after postal investigators interviewed him about thousands of pieces of mail found in Michigan.Kristopher Block, 40, of La Porte, was charged with felony official misconduct and misdemeanor theft, according to the La Porte County Prosecuting Attorney's Office. A warrant has been issued for his arrest.The investigation started after 11,000 pieces of mail were recovered in Berrien County, Michigan. Investigators with the U.S. Postal Service Office of Inspector General interviewed Block and then he decided to resign, said Jeff Arney, a USPS OIG spokesman.Arney said Block had a primary route in La Porte, but also would assist with at least four other routes, as well. It's unclear what areas of La Porte may have been impacted.A La Porte Postmaster spokeswoman said Wednesday that she is trying to clarify the route locations.Meantime, Arney emphasized that most employees do their jobs.It was unclear Wednesday afternoon whether Block was in police custody.
target: – Neither snow nor rain can keep most mail carriers from their duties, but a too-taxing workload apparently derailed ex-Indiana mailman Kristopher Block. He's now charged with misdemeanor theft and felony "official misconduct" after allegedly not delivering 17,000 pieces of mail, the Indianapolis Star reports. What the former La Porte mail carrier is accused of doing with the backlogged mail: hoarding 6,000 pieces of it in his home, as well as paying an accomplice $50 per bundle to dispose of about 11,000 pieces of mail by burning it in Michigan. The still-unnamed helper, however, reportedly instead dumped the mail in a Michigan ravine, where it was found in February 2017. The USPS traced the mail back to Block, and he's said to have feigned ignorance when first approached about it. But court documents note that once some of the recovered mail was shown to him, Block said: "Looks like I'm going to jail." He then admitted he'd fallen behind on his shifts and started taking undelivered mail home. One La Porte resident tells WSBT 22 it was a "crapshoot" on whether he'd get his mail or not during the six-month period in question—late 2016 to the time of Block's resignation in February 2017—and that he finally just got a PO Box. A statement from a USPS Office of Inspector General spokesman notes that "the vast majority of US Postal Service personnel are ... hardworking public servants dedicated to moving mail to its proper destination who would never consider engaging in any form of criminal behavior." Meanwhile, a La Porte post office rep says they're trying to figure out which customers would have been affected, per WLS.