U.S. Postal Inspectors Arrest 14 in Drug Sweep at Mail Facility

U.S. postal inspectors Wednesday arrested 13 employees of the Santa Ana General Mail Facility and one non-employee for allegedly selling cocaine, marijuana and other drugs at the plant.

A 14th employee was being sought Wednesday evening, postal inspector William Watson said.

The arrests, four of which were made at the post office at 1325 Sunflower Ave., capped a seven-week investigation in which postal inspectors posed as workers and bought drugs from the suspects, William Maisch, chief inspector for the Los Angeles area, said at a news conference at the mail facility.

Fifty postal inspectors, armed with state and federal warrants, participated in Wednesday’s operation, which began at 2:15 p.m, postal authorities said. Santa Ana police and U.S. Customs officials also took part in the arrests.

The largest buys made by undercover investigators were an ounce of marijuana and an ounce of cocaine, Maisch said. Other drugs sold to agents were methamphetamines and barbiturates, he said. Some drugs were seized Wednesday during the arrests, Maisch said.

Most of the employees arrested worked in the post office’s mail-handling area, where nearly all of Orange County’s mail is sorted and rerouted to other post offices. About 1,500 people work in the mail-handling room, which operates 24 hours a day.

Agents uncovered no evidence that employees were using the mails in the drug sales, nor any evidence of any drug trafficking with post office customers, Maisch said. Employees who allegedly bought drugs but did not sell them were not arrested in Wednesday’s raid, but Maisch said other suspects “will be questioned with regard to related drug activity.”

He would not say how widespread the drug use is. “But I envision that the problem is no different than in society at large,” he said.

Santa Ana Postmaster Frederic Florence said services at the post office were unaffected by the raid. “We had advance notice of this, and we were able to bring in extra people,” he said.

Florence, who became postmaster at the Santa Ana facility less than a year ago, said one of the first things he did was ask the inspectors to come in and give him an assessment of the drug situation at the plant. When they reported to him that “drug activity was going on here,” Florence said, he asked for the undercover operation.

“The message needs to be made loud and clear,” Florence said. “There is too much public trust at stake for us to tolerate even a small amount (of drugs).” He added that U.S. Postal Service employees are advised through their unions that undercover drug operations “will take place and do take place.”

Five post office employees were arrested in 1984 after similar undercover investigations at postal facilities at Los Angeles International Airport and in Marina del Rey. Earlier this year, a Sacramento-area mail carrier was arrested and seven other employees were suspended without pay on suspicion of drug trafficking.

The employees arrested Wednesday were: Renate de Ruiter, 27, of Midway City; Thea Denise Holloway, 29, of Huntington Beach; Sergio F. Trevino, 32, of Santa Ana; Hans Laughlin, 23, of Santa Ana; Wesley Todd Nicholas, 27, of Yorba Linda; David Charles Monroe, 30, of Anaheim; Ignacio Carranza Perez, 32, of Riverside; Rhonda Leigh Casebolt, 28, of Westminster; Hana Citrom, 23, of Costa Mesa; Linda Ann Morales, 32, of Pico Rivera; Emily King Rivera, 28, of Santa Ana; Marciano Suarez, 26, of Baldwin Park, and Mario Juan Rodriguez, 33, of Garden Grove. The non-employee arrested was Natividad Villa Senor, 31, of Fullerton.

The suspects were taken to Los Angeles City Jail and Sybil Brand Institute for Women, where they are awaiting arraignment, Maisch said.