Ex-Postmaster Gets 6-Month Sentence

A Reseda postmaster convicted of stealing $6,585 from a post office safe was sentenced Monday to six months in prison and ordered to return the money.

Joseph Bilotta, postmaster of a Reseda Boulevard post office since 1978, also was placed on three years’ probation.

Bilotta was convicted last month on three counts of theft of government property for stealing cash from a safe used exclusively for money put in stamp-vending machines between Nov. 13, 1986, and April 8, 1987.

The sentence by U.S. District Judge Richard A. Gadbois Jr. was relatively light because Bilotta had no previous criminal record and already had been punished by the U.S. Post Office, said Thomas Hagemann, an assistant U.S. attorney.

Bilotta, 47, was fired from his post office job and also lost his retirement benefits. He could have received a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison and a $750,000 fine.

“I’d say we were satisfied with the sentence and mainly just thankful that he was apprehended,” Hagemann said. “It was a tad on the generous side, but he’d been working for the post office for years and has basically been punished in a lot of other areas.”

At the sentencing hearing, Judge Gadbois, who had presided over Bilotta’s one-day trial, referred to the thefts as a “breach of the public trust.”

Bilotta had testified that he never took the money and had not broken into the safe. He said he often found the door to the safe open and blamed careless workers.

A postal worker responsible for servicing the machines testified that he reported the crime after discovering that the machines did not contain enough money for the number of stamps sold, Hagemann said.

Audits revealed that cash had indeed disappeared, and a videotape camera was installed. Bilotta was then taped taking money from the safe, Hagemann said.