I like to follow my hometown’s local news. It’s tonic to the long series of bad news from everywhere else to read small town news. But like the proverbial moth to the flame I do find myself drawn to the darker stories. My favorite is reading the police blotter. It’s a daily record of mystery and tragedy and suspicion and I like it.
But after all the bad news this week, the narrow pages of the IR didn’t satisfy my need for small scale misery so I cruised over to the Billings Gazette and got what I was looking for: Molt Postmaster Admits Stealing Money
Molt is tiny, I had never heard of it. So I looked it up on Wikipedia:
Molt is an unincorporated rural village located in Stillwater County, Montana, and has a post office serving ZIP code, a hardware store, a cafe and several granaries. The elevation is 3,966 feet. Molt appears on the Molt U.S. Geological Survey Map
Don’t think that just because it’s a small town (unincorporated rural village) it’s going to be overlooked, oh no. The post office is listed first so you know it’s important.
From the article:
…agents with the U.S. Postal Service Office of Inspector General audited the Molt Post Office in August 2015. …
The audit found that Reinholz, 59, who was the postmaster, had issued herself 39 money orders between March 2015 and August 2015. She eventually paid for 25 of the money orders, but not the remaining 14 money orders, for a loss totaling $7,879, Sullivan said.
Like I said, this is just what I was looking for. But it’s sad huh? Tiny town, working in the post office with $20,000 in credit card debt. I’m sure she was staring at those money orders for months before she wrote the first one. But that’s just how it goes isn’t it? You let the devil get his foot in the door and before you know it he’s moved in and stinking up the place.
She’ll pay it all back and it doesn’t look like they’ll make her spend any time in jail. Lucky her there’s no jail in Molt. Then again, in a town that small, I’m sure she’ll never live it down.
I wonder what she bought in the first place. Avon? Presents for her kids? Was it worth all that? I doubt it. But then again I never worked in the post office in Molt so who am I to judge?