An Ohio supervisor for the United States Postal Service has admitted to making thousands while dealing illegal drugs.
Kerry Beech Jr., a 31-year-old USPS supervisor in Cincinnati, pleaded guilty in US District Court Thursday for his role in a 2020 scheme that saw him intercept 28 packages containing fentanyl and methamphetamine and deliver the packages himself. According to Kenneth Parker, the US attorney for the Southern District of Ohio, Beech received $500 per package from the person he delivered it to.
An operation by federal agents in July 2020 found Beech in possession of four sealed packages containing illegal drugs, and officers also found him in possession of $4,500 in cash and a loaded handgun in his car.
OHIO LAW ENFORCEMENT SEIZES ENOUGH FENTANYL TO KILL 190,000 PEOPLE
USPS trucks sit at a US Postal Service (USPS) facility in Elkridge, Maryland, USA, on Sunday, August 16, 2020. The House may cut its recess short to hold hearings on the crisis in the USPS amid a national uproar over funding cuts and mail delays that threaten to impede voting in the November election.
(Photographer: Stefani Reynolds/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Beech was finally charged with mail theft in September, which can carry a five-year prison sentence for a USPS employee.
The fentanyl bust comes as Ohio has grappled with a growing opioid crisis in recent years. According to the most recent data from the CDC, the state had the fourth-highest drug overdose rate in 2020, behind only West Virginia, Kentucky and Delaware.
A USPS (United States Postal Service) mail truck leaves for a delivery in Fullerton, California, on July 18, 2020.
(iStock)
The state has also seen an increase in overdose deaths each year since 2018, CDC data shows.
Fentanyl has been one of the drivers of the rise in overdose deaths across the country since 2020, with authorities warning that the drug is extremely dangerous and can be deadly in small doses.
Fentanyl seized in Arizona.
(Arizona Department of Public Safety)
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“We lost nearly 108,000 people” last year to opioid intoxication, he said, with two-thirds of those deaths attributed to fentanyl-like substances, said William Bennett, who served as the US “drug czar” under the administration of former President George HW Bush told Fox News Digital last month.
