FORT WORTH, Texas — A Fort Worth man has pleaded guilty to illegally concealing a stolen U.S. Postal Service arrow key and could face a decade in prison.
Authorities say thieves target USPS master keys, known as "arrow keys" to steal mail and packages. The special key allows mail carriers to access the blue collection boxes along their routes.
Willis Bender, 18, was charged in October 2023 and pleaded guilty Wednesday to concealment of stolen property of the United States. According to court documents, Bender admitted he received and concealed a stolen arrow key.
The key had been stolen from a letter carrier in Everman on Smith Avenue on Sept. 20, 2023. The carrier reported that she was robbed at gunpoint by a black man who demanded she hand over her “mailbox key.”
Everman police said they arrested Bender later that day at the Stallion Ridge Apartment Complex in Fort Worth.
After he was arrested Bender gave various accounts of his involvement in the robbery. According to court documents, at first, he claimed he knew nothing about the incident; then he claimed that a man showed up at his front door, threatened his family and forced him to partake in the robbery. In a second interview, Bender claimed a man threatened him at gunpoint and made him sit in the back seat of his car during the robbery.
In yet another interview, Bender said a man committed the robbery while he and another person waited outside in the vehicle, court documents say.
In his final interview, Bender claimed that when police arrived outside his home, he looked outside and saw the stolen arrow key sitting outside his door. Not wanting to get in trouble for robbery, he took the key and hid it behind the air duct grill in his bedroom alongside his gun, he claimed.
If convicted, Bender faces up to 10 years in federal prison.
In recent months, criminals haven't just been stealing mail and packages. USPS data shows mail carriers are increasingly the main target. In the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, eight mail carriers were robbed at gunpoint from January 2024 to February 2024.
Robbing a mail carrier is a federal felony that carries a sentence of up to 25 years.
USPS started a campaign in May 2023 called Project Safe Delivery. It's a nationwide effort to crack down on postal crime and crimes against postal workers.
