Sugar Land USPS worker arrested, found with 66 envelopes of checks, according to police

SUGAR LAND, Texas (KTRK) -- A postal worker in Sugar Land was arrested on a mail theft charge after police say they received multiple reports of forged checks.

The Sugar Land Police Department, in a joint investigation with USPS Office of Inspector General special agents, said 32-year-old Jeland Mouton was found with 226 pieces of mail addressed to 50 different people.

Investigators said all of the mail was unopened, but 66 envelopes had checks inside that they said could have been used to commit forgeries.

"It's great. It's accountability. You need to make arrests, but making an arrest is far less effective than actually stopping the crime," said Frank Albergo, National President of the Postal Police Officers Association.

Internal mail theft is something USPS OIG admitted is "prevalent" in processing facilities around the country, according to a report it provided Congress last spring.

"Once they start using the word 'prevalent,' you have a problem that's spiraling out of control," Albergo said.

USPS OIG data shows that during a two-year period from October 2023 through September 2025, the agency conducted and closed 3,255 investigations into internal mail theft across the United States.

According to the data, 97 of those investigations came from the Houston area.

"When you have 600,000 employees, and even a fraction of those employees are thieves, you are talking about a lot," Albergo said. "But most postal employees are hardworking civil servants."

Mail theft is not just happening by USPS employees.

In USPS's most recent report to Congress, the agency said it has seen a rise in criminal organizations targeting employees to steal financial documents from the mail, like checks, credit cards, and debit cards.

During a six-month period, from October 2024 to March 2025, the USPS Office of Inspector General said 872 investigations were closed, resulting in 254 arrests.

"The downstream effects of mail theft are severe. It starts out as just stolen mail, but then it becomes compromised bank accounts, banking fraud, checking fraud," Albergo said.

13 Investigates found Mouton reached plea agreements in Harris County on two unrelated charges filed in 2016, one for theft and one for aggravated robbery with a deadly weapon.

We don't know whether USPS was aware of Mouton's prior charges, but they confirmed Mouton is currently in a "non-duty" status.

The Sugar Land PD is now reminding residents to take precautions to prevent themselves from becoming victims of check fraud. This includes regularly monitoring bank accounts when writing checks to identify unauthorized activity quickly.

Sugar Land PD also said using gel pens can make it harder for criminals to remove ink from checks to alter them.

Police also recommend placing checks inside a folded piece of paper to make them less visible when mailing them or avoiding mailing checks altogether by using secure online or direct payment options.

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