Raiding mailboxes got him $700K in checks, feds say. Now Virginia man is prison bound
Jonathan Drew, a 39-year-old Reston man, went to jail on two separate occasions last year after he was accused of raiding mailboxes in Virginia. He made bond both times — and went right back to stealing mail, prosecutors said.
Now Drew, who has remained in jail since his third arrest, faces a longer stint behind bars.
He was sentenced Wednesday to five years and 10 months in prison followed by five years of supervised release, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia said in a news release.
A public defender appointed to represent Drew did not immediately respond to McClatchy News’ request for comment on Thursday.
Prosecutors said Drew’s theft was far-reaching. He is accused of stealing the personal information of more than 150 people, opening bank accounts and leasing apartments in his victims’ names, taking over $700,000 worth of business checks from a single mailbox and counterfeiting government-issued stimulus checks in the midst of the pandemic.
“He organized some of that information neatly into charts, keeping track of victim’s names, addresses, and social security numbers along with the bank accounts he had opened in their name and the fraudulent email addresses he had created,” prosecutors said in court documents.
The government had requested a prison sentence of more than seven years, saying Drew “had no concern for... the emotional harm and distress he caused.”
According to court filings, the alleged scheme lasted from December 2019 to August 2020.
Drew first appeared on investigators’ radar in January 2020 after several residents in a townhouse community in Reston — about 30 minutes outside of Washington, D.C. — reported having paychecks and credit cards stolen from their mailboxes, McClatchy News previously reported.
A U.S. Postal Inspector traced the thefts to Drew with the help of residents and by tracking purchases made with the stolen credit cards, according to court documents.
Police arrested Drew in March 2020 after investigators searched his apartment and found the stolen personal information of at least 40 people. He was released from jail on a $1,000 bond, according to an affidavit.
Shortly after his release, 41 checks totaling $714,000 went missing from a woman’s mailbox in Reston.
The woman, who was working from home during the pandemic, had reportedly mailed the checks to vendors doing business with her employers.
Around the same time, prosecutors said another resident was notified by his bank that someone was drawing from his account. According to the affidavit, the warning came shortly after he mailed a $15,000 check to the Internal Revenue Service that never got cashed.
Investigators said they subsequently searched Drew’s apartment for a second time in August 2020 and found laminated charts with victims’ personal information, more stolen mail and counterfeiting tools.
The Postal Inspector said they also found a stolen stimulus check for $1,200 as well as six counterfeit stimulus checks. An investigator with the Treasury Department — the federal agency tasked with doling out stimulus payments — discovered shortly thereafter that Drew had somehow received two legitimate stimulus checks for $1,200.
Drew was again released on bond and, one month later, discovered stealing mail, prosecutors said.
He was charged by criminal complaint and arrested in November, court filings show. Drew pleaded guilty to one count of bank fraud and one count of identity theft in April.
A court hearing to determine what Drew owes in restitution and forfeiture is set for Sept. 1.
