Some similar cases

Postal worker sentenced for hoarding letters from authorities

"Yellow foxes" have already been in court several times for sloppiness.

(Bild: APA/HARALD SCHNEIDER (Symbolbild))

A 57-year-old postman was sentenced to seven months' conditional imprisonment on Thursday for failing to properly deliver several RSa and RSb letters in Steyr. "I take full responsibility for this," said the defendant. It was not the first postal case in court.

"I am very sorry. I know that damage can be caused by not delivering official letters" - a decades-old postal worker from Eisenstadt was remorseful and confessed before the Steyr Regional Court on Thursday. According to the accusation, the 57-year-old had not properly delivered some RSa and RSb letters in the spring, but had hoarded them in a box in his post office.

The public prosecutor therefore charged him with abuse of official authority. Sentence: six months to five years.

No damage
However, the senate of lay assessors did not exhaust the possible range of punishment by far. The defendant honestly admitted his mistake - he had apparently left the box with the letters for about a week instead of delivering them; a sloppy act, as he said - and the recipients should not have suffered any damage as a result of the non-delivery.

However, the defendant did not get away with the lower limit of six months because he had already committed a similar sloppiness in 2018. The final sentence was seven months, with a probationary period of three years.

Some similar cases
Other postal workers, some of whom had "messed up" significantly more, have also been in court. Last year, there were three similar cases in Upper Austria within a short space of time: A 21-year-old in Sierning hoarded 47 returned items in her car and cellar compartment, a postal employee (27) disposed of 84 RSb letters in the garbage in Engerwitzdorf and a 22-year-old deliverer hoarded 167 official mail items in Steyr. They all got away with diversion.