A callous U.S. postal service worker and two accomplices stole tens of thousands of dollars in rent payments from the mail, putting tenants at risk of eviction and forcing some of them to pay twice, Brooklyn prosecutors said Monday.
Bianca Graham, 30, of Astoria, abused her position at the Blythebourne Post Office in Borough Park to make some extra cash at the expense of 13 victims between August 2024 and August 2025, prosecutors say.
Her scheme netted her and accomplice Sean Campbell, 36, of Prospect Lefferts Gardens, more than $25,100, before a tipster led investigators to get a warrant for her phone, prosecutors said.
Both were indicted Monday on grand larceny, criminal possession of a forged instrument, petty larceny and conspiracy charges. A third suspect, whose name is redacted from the indictment, has not been caught.
Some of the victims were at risk of eviction and had to pay the rent a second time to cover the missing payment, a law enforcement source said.
“The landlord was understanding but we had to wait for the check. We never got the money orders back,” one victim, Jean Desanges, 78, told the Daily News. “We still had to pay the landlord so we paid twice…. There’s people that do it on purpose they knew what they are doing.”
Another victim, Kianna Olivier, 29, had a more frustrating ordeal, when her building’s management company took her to court. The victims stole five of her money orders, according to the indictment.
“We found out about it in 2025 and I sent it in August 2024,” she said. “I had to go to court three times…. I had to go through the process of court and get a private investigator.”
She added, “That definitely wasn’t a good feeling because one to send something and it’s supposed to be secure, and for it to not be that is frightening.”
The case was settled after more than a year, and though she didn’t have to repay the roughly $6,000 her landlord didn’t get, she did have to pay hundreds in court fees, she said.
“It’s just all because people wanted to steal,” she said. “I would tell people to be more cautious like do more on online orders with management. If I wasn’t on top of it I would have to dish more money out again.”
Graham’s job sorting and distributing mail at the post office put her in a position to steal envelopes addressed to property management companies that held money orders meant to pay the rent, officials said.
“I think I found my in,” Graham texted her other accomplice on Aug. 24, 2024, according to the indictment. “I only took 1 and it’s a (money) order.”
She and Campbell allegedly removed the names on the money order and replaced them with either Campbell or someone else’s name before cashing them. In some cases, Campbell simply added his name alongside the money order’s intended recipient, prosecutors say.
“Rent is often a household’s largest monthly expense, and tenants who mail money orders to pay for their homes are entitled to believe those payments will arrive safely,” Brooklyn D.A. Eric Gonzalez said. “These defendants exploited that trust.”
The conspirators had to figure out which money orders were cancelled and which would go through. At one point, on Oct. 16, 2014, Graham warned the other accomplice, “Stop talking to me about this over the phone,” the indictment alleges.
Campbell and the other accomplice would hop from post office to post office to cash the money orders.
“I’m at my next spot that got good money and I know the people hopefully the next three go now and I could start going home,” the unapprehended accomplice texted Graham on Feb. 18, 2025, the indictment reads.
Graham got spooked a month later, warning her accomplice, on March 26, “The inspectors are here again,” according to the indictment.
And on June 22, 2025, when the accomplice asked, “Are you going to keep the business going or you want to play like you can’t get no tickets,” Graham replied, “The inspectors really are watching the boxes that’s why I don’t go over there anymore.”
When police and U.S. Postal Service investigators confronted Graham in October, she denied the scheme at first, then admitted it and said she participated under duress, according to court filings.
Both were arraigned in Brooklyn Supreme Court Monday, released without bail and ordered to return to court Aug. 26. Their lawyers did not return calls requesting comment.
