Long Island postal worker accused of stealing gift card, lottery tickets from the mail

A U.S. Postal Service employee in New York is facing grand larceny charges after, authorities allege, she stole a gift card and lottery tickets out of sealed mail.

Suspect Jovanni Jamison-Lewis, 35, was working as a clerk at a Long Island post office in Oakdale, 40 miles east of Queens, on Nov. 19 when she took two sealed envelopes out of a bin for outgoing mail, the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office said Friday.

She is accused of opening the two envelopes, opening greeting cards inside the envelopes and taking out a T.J. Maxx gift card and three New York Lottery scratch-off tickets. She then put the empty greeting cards back in the envelopes and in the outgoing mail bin.

The next day, Ms. Jamison-Lewis used the T.J. Maxx gift card at a store 18 miles northwest of the post office, prosecutors alleged, unaware that the card had been sent out by an undercover investigator working for the Suffolk County DA. The authorities did not say whether Ms. Jamison-Lewis is accused of using the lottery tickets. 

Local investigators and personnel from the U.S. Postal Service Office of Inspector General arrested Ms. Jamison-Lewis on Nov. 24, recovering two pieces of mail from her pants, four more pieces of mail from her purse and 20 other pieces of mail from her car and residence after executing search warrants, the DA’s office said.

Prosecutors did not say how much the stolen gift cards or items from the other recovered pieces of mail were worth.

Ms. Jamison-Lewis had worked for the U.S. Postal Service since November 2024 and resigned Dec. 1 in the aftermath of her arrest, prosecutors said. She was arraigned in court Friday on charges of fourth-degree grand larceny, fourth-degree criminal possession of stolen property, petit larceny and official misconduct.