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   0 Down votes, mark as not useful ||||| CAMDEN, N.J. – A Knoxville, Tennessee, man was sentenced today to 20 months in prison for recruiting individuals to cash fraudulent money orders that he received from a former South Jersey U.S. Postal Service (USPS) employee, U.S. Attorney Craig Carpenito announced. 
   
   Eugene Bowen, 35, previously pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Joseph H. Rodriguez to an information charging him with one count of transmitting and presenting unlawfully issued USPS money orders with intent to defraud the United States. Judge Rodriguez imposed the sentence today in Camden federal court. 
   
   According to the documents filed in this case and statements made in court: 
   
   Bowen admitted that Marc Saunders, 40, of Sicklerville, New Jersey, a former employee at the USPS branch in New Lisbon, New Jersey, provided him with stolen money orders and told him to recruit others to cash them. Bowen admitted that he recruited individuals to cash the money orders and paid them a small fee, while keeping the rest of the money for Saunders and himself. 
   
   In addition to the prison term, Judge Rodriguez sentenced Bowen to three years of supervised release and ordered to pay restitution of $18,470. 
   
   On Dec. 12, 2017, Saunders pleaded guilty to his role in the scheme, including producing the money orders with a stolen imprinting machine and giving them to others to cash. His sentencing is scheduled for July 24, 2018. 
   
   Acting U.S. Attorney Carpenito credited special agents of the USPS, Office of the Inspector General, under the direction of Acting Special Agent in Charge Kenneth M. Cleevely of the Eastern Area Field Office, with the investigation leading to today’s sentencing. 
   
   The government is represented by Assistant U.S. Attorney Alyson M. Oswald of the U.S. Attorney’s Office Criminal Division in Camden. 
   
   
   
   Defense counsel: John Brennan Esq., Marlton, New Jersey ||||| Three accomplices have received prison terms in connection with a scheme to cash money orders stolen from the U.S. Postal Service. (Photo: Jim Walsh/Staff photographer) 
   
   CAMDEN – A former postal worker escaped prison for orchestrating a scheme to cash stolen money orders, but his middlemen weren’t so fortunate. 
   
   A federal judge has sentenced the last of three accomplices to prison, ordering Anthony Bell, 39, of Philadelphia to spend a year and a day in custody for his role in the 15-month scheme. 
   
   That followed prison terms of 20 months for Eugene Bowen, 36, of Knoxville, Tennessee, and nine months for Andre Sutton, 39, whose address was not available. 
   
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   In contrast, the scheme’s organizer, 40-year-old Marc Saunders of Sicklerville, received a five-year probationary sentence last month, including eight months of home confinement. 
   
   Saunders was ordered to pay restitution of almost $100,000. 
   
   The middlemen also were ordered to make restitution — about $22,400 for Bell, $18,500 for Bowen and $4,700 for Sutton. 
   
   Postmaster left printer unguarded 
   
   Three men have received prison terms in connection with the theft of U.S. Postal Service money orders. (Photo: Jim Walsh/Staff photographer) 
   
   A 13-page affidavit filed in federal court in Camden says a postmaster’s errors set the stage for thefts that eventually reached some $100,000. 
   
   It says the manager of the New Lisbon post office in rural Pemberton Township failed to return a machine that printed money orders when the Postal Service introduced new technology in February 2013. 
   
   The postmaster, who was transferred to another office in June 2013, also neglected to destroy about 180 loose money orders that could be printed with the outdated machine, the affidavit says. 
   
   Saunders began working more than a year later at the Pemberton office, where the printing machine — too big for the postmaster’s safe — had been stored in a cabinet, according to the affidavit by David Bannon, a special agent with the Office of Inspector General at the Postal Service. 
   
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   The Postal Service began investigating in late 2015, after people started cashing stolen money orders at post offices in the Philadelphia area, the affidavit says. 
   
   Bannon said serial numbers on the money orders led him to the Pemberton Township office on rural Four Mile Road, where he learned the imprinting machine had vanished. 
   
   According to the affidavit, Bannon then realized the stolen money orders carried ZIP codes — imprinted by the stolen machine — for post offices “all over the United States.” 
   
   None, however, were marked with New Lisbon’s ZIP code. 
   
   As a result, Bannon suspected a postal employee had stolen the machine from New Lisbon and was repeatedly changing its ZIP code setting to divert attention from that branch. 
   
   Social media ties accomplices together 
   
   Most of the money orders were cashed at post offices in the Philadelphia area, but 22 were passed in Knoxville, where Bowen allegedly recruited residents of homeless shelters to conduct the transactions. 
   
   Nine orders were cashed in post offices around York, Pennsylvania, and one in Jersey City. 
   
   The August 2017 affidavit noted about 50 money orders never surfaced — and the printing machine remained missing. 
   
   Investigators were able to identify lower-level participants, who cashed the money orders for a fee. They then linked their cellphones and Facebook pages to those used by Saunders and the middlemen, the affidavit says. 
   
   More: Mailman hoarded more than 17,000 pieces of mail, authorities say 
   
   It notes one alleged ring member, identified only as M.M., passed a stolen money order in September 2015 — and at the same time bought a legitimate order made out to Saunders, then a Mount Laurel resident. 
   
   The affidavit also notes the men shared family ties and childhood connections. 
   
   It says Bowen and Saunders are cousins, while Sutton told investigators he grew up in the same neighborhood as Bell, attended high school with Saunders, and used to play football with Bowen. 
   
   The affidavit also says Bannon received two faxed letters in June 2017 from Bowen and a payee that used language from the “sovereign citizens” movement to challenge his authority and that of the court system. 
   
   Bell was sentenced July 25, one day after Saunders received his probationary term. Bowen and Sutton were sentenced in June. 
   
   All of the men were sentenced by U.S. District Judge Joseph Rodriguez. 
   
   Follow Jim Walsh on Twitter: @jimwalsh_cp 
   
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target: – A neglected printing machine and nearly 200 blank money-order forms caught the eye of Marc Saunders sometime after he started working at the Postal Service's New Lisbon, NJ, branch in 2014. Four years later, Saunders has been hit with a five-year probation and ordered to pay the agency back almost $100,000 after he pleaded guilty to orchestrating a scheme in which he printed fraudulent money orders and gave them to others to cash, the Cherry Hill Courier-Post reports. Saunders' accomplices, who helped him find people to cash the money orders (including residents of homeless shelters), fared worse on the prison front: Anthony Bell, 39, was given a year and a day behind bars and a $22,400 restitution bill; Eugene Bowen, 36, a 20-month prison sentence and $18,500 restitution; and Andre Sutton, 39, a nine-month sentence and $4,700 restitution. An affidavit filed in Camden federal court by David Bannan, a special agent for the USPS' Office of Inspector General, details how the New Lisbon branch phased out the old money-order machine in 2013. Because it couldn't fit inside the office safe, however, the New Lisbon postmaster placed it inside a cabinet; it remained there when she moved to another branch later that year. The agent details his "evidence pointing to an inside job," noting Saunders ran his scheme between August 2015 and December 2016. Most of the money orders were cashed in the Philly area, as well as in Knoxville, Tenn. Once the stolen money orders started to emerge, Bannan traced the serial numbers to the New Lisbon office, where the machine had gone missing. Investigators then tied people who did the cashing to the suspects via their Facebook connections and cellphone info.