Mail thefts drop after April arrest

Former U.S. Postal Service worker Gerald Ricca, who pled guilty to charges of mail theft last April, finished his two-month incarceration earlier this month and will soon begin his mandatory 300 hours of community service at the University. Ricca, a clerk at the 30th Street Post Office, was arrested on three counts of mail theft and three counts of mail delay last year. He retired from the Postal Service in July. Ricca was responsible for many of the mail thefts that plagued University dormitories since 1992 -- striking the Quadrangle especially hard. According to U.S. Postal Inspector Lou Recchilongo, the number of complaints from University students decreased by more than 99 percent after Ricca's arrest in February. And this semester has been equally problem-free, he said. "There used to be a collective cringe each fall when the theft reports started coming in," he said. "There has been nothing like that this year." But Residential Services Director Nancy McCue said she has handled more than 1,400 reports of lost or damaged mail filed with Residential Living since that time. McCue said she has received three complaints of damaged mail since September, but the damage was apparently the result of transport conditions, not tampering. There have been about seven complaints about lost mail, McCue added. Recchilongo called these numbers extremely low. "Mail does sometimes get lost on its way," he said. "But it's when we start to see a pattern -- such as disappearance of mail going to a certain address -- that puts a light under us and we start to investigate." There have been no reports of rifled mail on campus this year, Recchilongo added. "We have our finger on the pulse of what's going on at Penn," he said. "The best way to prevent theft is to act on complaints right away."

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