Richmond mail thief sentenced to 7 years in federal prison

A Houston man accused of stealing hundreds of checks from Richmond-area mailboxes was sentenced Tuesday to nearly six years in prison.

Daruin Anelby Rosario, 28, was arrested in October 2023 and charged with burglarizing a U.S. Postal Service blue mailbox in Richmond and stealing postal checks that had been deposited there. He was charged with possession of stolen mail, unlawful possession of a postal key and aggravated identity theft.

U.S. District Judge David Hittner sentenced Rosario to 71 months in prison on those three counts, plus an additional 2 years in prison for violating probation on a separate 2022 mail theft conviction, court records show.

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Postal inspectors began investigating complaints of mail theft in Richmond in July 2023, following a request from the Richmond Police Department. An inspector installed a covert camera on one of the city's collection boxes, as well as a sensor that alerts when the box's door is opened.

Two days after the equipment was installed, the camera captured Rosario opening the mailbox and removing mail. Rosario repeated these visits twice over the next month, according to the complaint. Rosario allegedly used a skeleton key to open the mailbox without damaging it, according to the complaint.

While detectives were monitoring the mailbox, they also received a tip from managers at a Katy apartment complex, who reported finding dozens of checks and three debit and credit cards inside an apartment Rosario had been evicted from.

According to court documents, when detectives served an arrest warrant at Rosario's home in October, they found about 1,400 checks and nearly 800 pieces of mail. Rosario admitted to stealing and selling the checks and revealed that he had 12 postal keys.

The complaint does not specify the total value of the checks. The manager of one of the businesses affected by the thefts, Crest Operating Company, said a stolen check cost him $7,500.

Rosario has previously been sent to prison for mail theft. In 2020, he was arrested and charged with mail theft after police discovered a “large quantity” of other people’s names in his car during a traffic stop.

The pile included letters, checks and an unopened absentee ballot from Washington state, prosecutors said.

Rosario later admitted to stealing and selling checks and other personal identifying information between March 2018 and November 2020, according to a 2022 plea agreement. Prosecutors said Rosario was part of a “network of contacts and co-conspirators” who stole mail and exchanged information with each other.

Rosario “organized, photographed, cataloged, distributed, instructed, and sold” the mail stolen as part of the operation. The information in the mail was then used to create fake checks, which in turn were used to rob banks and businesses.

Prosecutors said Rosario was responsible for losses of $150,000 during that two-year period.

In 2022, Rosario pleaded guilty to the first count of mail theft and was sentenced to three months in federal prison and two more years of supervised release. He was on probation when he was arrested the second time, court records show. He has been in federal custody since his 2023 arrest.

He pleaded guilty to his most recent charges in March.