3 or 4 Postal Officials May Be Disciplined, U.S. Attorney Says

Seven months after authorities began investigating Santa Ana Postal Division Manager Hector Godinez, a federal prosecutor in Los Angeles said Thursday that “three or four” postal officials face possible administrative discipline for misreporting on-the-job injuries and medical treatment.

Assistant U.S. Atty. Stephen Wolfe said he will await the outcome of administrative proceedings before taking further action. He declined to name the officials involved.

“I decided to defer a decision about filing any criminal charges until we see whether the Postal Service takes any administrative action to discipline the postal officials involved,” Wolfe said. “If administrative discipline addresses what we’ve seen, then that probably will take care of the matter.”

Wolfe said that reporting of work-related accidents and follow-up medical treatment “wasn’t all that it might have been. The facts as we know them raise the question, or the possibility, that it was done deliberately.”

Supervises 10,000 Employees

Godinez, 64, supervises 10,000 employees in a division that includes most of Orange County, the San Gabriel Valley, eastern Los Angeles County and western Riverside County. Thursday he repeated earlier statements that he has done nothing wrong.

“If there is due process and fairness in this world, I will be proven right,” Godinez said. He said he had received no information about the status of the investigation except from reporters.

Wolfe would not say whether Godinez was one of the officials referred to Regional Postmaster General J.R. Caraveo for possible discipline. He also would not identify the other officials involved in the investigation, which The Times reported last July.

Caraveo said he had not received all of the evidence reviewed by postal inspectors and given to the U.S. attorney’s office but added: “There’s no implication that he had any knowledge of what happened. . . . Based on what I see now, I will not be taking any action against Mr. Godinez.”

Wolfe denied a published report that he had recommended disciplinary action to Caraveo. “That’s not our role,” he said.

Wolfe said there was no specific evidence that any postal worker lost medical benefits because of under-reporting of injuries.

Parts of the investigation are still under way, Postal Inspection Service agents said Thursday. Among the unresolved issues: a complaint that Godinez retaliated against so-called whistle-blowers by transferring or demoting them.

Last July, federal authorities confirmed that they were looking into allegations against Godinez in response to complaints from postal workers.

Part of the investigation involved alleged mismanagement of funds relating to a Postal Service contract with America Transwest Corp., which screens bills from physicians before they are paid by the Postal Service.

A former America Transwest employee is being sought by Costa Mesa police for allegedly misappropriating $15,000 from the firm, but Godinez was never a suspect in the disappearance of the money, authorities said Thursday.

Investigators said several months ago they were looking into conflict-of-interest allegations against Godinez. He is personally acquainted with the president of the firm and allegedly referred injured postal workers to Western Medical Center. He is a member of that hospital’s board of directors.

Godinez has acknowledged recommending the contract with America Transwest before it was approved by regional Postal Service officials in San Bruno.