RALEIGH - Steven Padgett, a 58-year-old former mail carrier, admitted Monday in federal court he kept people's junk mail stacked in storage bins in his garage or buried in his backyard, committing a crime that some might view as an unintended favor.

During some of the 13 years he worked as a carrier, Padgett held onto thousands of pieces of third-class mail -- including unsolicited offers on pizza deals, oil changes and storm windows -- instead of delivering them to residents on his Apex route off Ten Ten Road.

A utility worker noticed the abundance of mail at Padgett's Netherlands Drive home in Raleigh and contacted postal officials. They confronted Padgett at his house May 6.

His motive was not to keep the letters from people but to keep his own job after he found himself overwhelmed by the daily demands to deliver and collect mail on the strict schedule mandated by the U.S. Postal Service, Padgett's attorney Andrew McCoppin said in a hearing in Raleigh's federal court Monday.

In the estimated seven years Padgett kept the circulars, his bosses never heard a complaint from residents on his route wondering where their mail was. That's unusual, said Larry Gleisner, the assistant special agent in charge for the USPS' Office of the Inspector General in Greensboro, which has Wake County under its jurisdiction.

Usually, postal inspectors hear from residents when mail goes missing. In Padgett's case, the junk mail may not have been missed in the first place. Postal agents have yet to find any first or second-class mail in the numerous bins recovered from Padgett's home.

"We don't see this as rifling through the mail," Gleisner said. "It was more his failure to deliver."

That failure to deliver could end up meaning time behind bars for Padgett, a married father of three grown children who is also a Vietnam veteran with no criminal history.

Padgett, who declined to talk to reporters after his guilty plea, could face a maximum punishment of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine for the felony of delaying the mail. He also could be placed on probation when he's sentenced Nov. 17 in federal court.

Overwhelmed

During his time as a carrier, Padgett was required to pick up sorted first- and second-class mail and combine that with the third-class fare that consisted of pizza coupons, grocery store inserts and other advertisements. But there were days when Padgett struggled to deliver bills, cards and letters to people on his route and still make it back to the post office so outgoing mail could be processed in a timely manner, McCoppin said.

On those busy days, he took the circulars back to his house. Postal inspectors aren't sure how long he was keeping mail, but they have found some pieces postmarked in 1999. A photograph entered into evidence of Padgett's garage shows bins haphazardly stacked several feet high.

"He made a poor choice, he made a wrong choice," McCoppin said about his client, who resigned from the postal service May 6, the day he was confronted.

U.S. District Court Judge James Dever III asked Josh Howard, a federal prosecutor, whether the companies who had paid to have their advertisements delivered were aware of what happened.

"I don't know what they paid the postal service, but they obviously didn't get what they paid for," Dever said in court.

Notices will soon go out, through the mail, to the hundreds of residences on Padgett's route, according to U.S. Postal Service officials. Padgett will return to court Nov. 17 for sentencing.

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