ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. – A brazen six-month crime spree that targeted hundreds of unsuspecting individuals has come to an end with a guilty plea.
Ah’Jhzae Diamondric Artag Berry, 30, of St. Petersburg, has admitted his role in a sophisticated operation that saw him break into U.S. Postal Service mailboxes, steal valuable contents, and defraud federally insured banks out of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
United States Attorney Gregory W. Kehoe announced Wednesday that Berry pleaded guilty to four counts of bank fraud and six counts of mail theft. He now faces a staggering maximum penalty of 30 years in federal prison for each bank fraud count and up to 5 years for each mail theft count. A sentencing date has not yet been scheduled.
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According to court documents, Berry, often under the cloak of night and aided by accomplices, systematically targeted U.S. Postal Service receptacles between January and June 2024. Using a stolen Postal Service key, Berry would breach the mailboxes, pilfering contents that included debit cards, credit cards, gift cards, and checks.
The scheme didn’t stop at theft. Berry and his co-conspirators then meticulously altered the payees on the stolen checks before fraudulently depositing them into federally insured banks. The sheer scale of their operation is striking: prosecutors revealed that hundreds of individuals were victimized, with an intended loss exceeding an estimated $380,000.
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This extensive investigation was spearheaded by the United States Postal Inspection Service, highlighting their commitment to protecting the integrity of the mail system and the public from financial fraud. Special Assistant United States Attorney Joseph Wheeler, III, is prosecuting the case.
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