Saahir Irby and Tauheed Tucker
Introduction
Saahir Irby, 28, and Tauheed Tucker, 25, both of Philadelphia, were sentenced on 19 October 2026 by U.S. District Judge Joshua D. Wolson for conspiring to steal thousands of U.S. Treasury checks while working as Postal Service mail processing clerks — Irby to 63 months in prison and Tucker to 42 months, with restitution orders and forfeiture judgments against both. All four defendants in the case pleaded guilty earlier in 2026 to conspiracy to steal government funds, theft of government funds, and mail theft.
Background Information
Between June 2023 and September 2024, Irby and Tucker — employed as United States Postal Service mail processing clerks — stole thousands of envelopes containing U.S. Treasury checks from mail sorting machines at the USPS Philadelphia Processing and Distribution Center. The two were charged by superseding indictment in May 2025 along with the resellers who bought the checks from them, Cory Scott and Alexander Telewoda, who are covered in their own entry on this site.
The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation
Convicted and sentenced. Irby and Tucker pleaded guilty earlier in 2026 and were sentenced 19 October 2026; the theft convictions rest on their own pleas.
The two clerks removed the checks from the USPS facility and sold them to Scott and Telewoda, who advertised the stolen checks for resale on the Telegram app; over the course of the scheme the checks sold to the resellers carried a face value exceeding $84 million, and their customers successfully negotiated approximately $11 million of them at financial institutions. Judge Wolson sentenced Irby to 63 months’ incarceration, three years of supervised release, restitution of $10,841,731.83, and forfeiture of $72,510, and Tucker to 42 months, three years of supervised release, restitution of $2,628,984.39, and forfeiture of $28,200.
Public Reaction and Consequences
The investigation spanned the U.S. Postal Service Office of Inspector General, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, Homeland Security Investigations, the FBI, and the Social Security Administration OIG, with assistance from the Montgomery County Detective Bureau, Lower Merion Township Police, and the Bureau of the Fiscal Service. Assistant U.S. Attorney Jessica Rice prosecuted the case announced by U.S. Attorney David Metcalf.
Current Status
Both men are beginning multi-year federal prison terms, with supervised release to follow and restitution obligations that run to seven figures for Irby. The guilty pleas resolved the case without trial, and the sentencing announcement closes the clerks’ portion of the four-defendant prosecution.
Impact on Their Career/Life
Postal Service employment ended in felony convictions for both clerks, prison terms, and forfeiture judgments — with Irby’s restitution order set at the full scheme loss of $10.8 million joint and several against the conspirators. The scale of the theft, from a sorting machine inside the nation’s mail system to buyers recruited on Telegram, turned two processing-clerk jobs into a federal case with an $84 million face-value footprint.
Sources
- U.S. Attorney’s Office, Eastern District of Pennsylvania, “Four Defendants Sentenced to Years in Prison for Conspiring to Steal and Sell U.S. Treasury Checks Worth Millions” — source