Man Found Guilty of Mail Fraud over False USPS Insurance Claims

A federal jury found Devin Ryan Maresca (33, Newcastle, PA) guilty of 10 counts of mail fraud and one count of aggravated identity theft on Thursday, according to prosecutors.

A November 2022 indictment alleged that between approximately May 2018 through July 2022, the defendant purchased USPS Priority Mail postage that included $50 in insurance for the lost or damaged contents of a shipment parcel.

“It was further part of the scheme and artifice to defraud that the defendant would and did submit and cause the submission of false and fraudulent claims through the USPS Customer Inquiry and Response System, certifying that contents of packages that he mailed were damaged,” the indictment alleged.

On August 24, 2023, a jury found the defendant guilty, according to prosecutors. An excerpt of the government’s press release with details follows:

“According to testimony and evidence presented at trial, while living in Cape Coral, Maresca filed more than 2,200 fraudulent indemnity claims to the United States Postal Service (USPS) claiming that Priority Mail packages that he had mailed or received were damaged. Maresca fraudulently used his mother, father, and brother’s names to submit most of the claims. Further, Maresca forged his family members’ signatures on the backs of USPS claims checks to deposit them into a bank account he controlled. The checks were mailed to mailboxes that Maresca had set up at UPS and Pak-Mail locations in Fort Myers, Cape Coral, and Punta Gorda.

“Maresca’s fraud scheme caused the USPS to issue more than $100,000 in claims checks. IP address, bank, and email records, along with USPS data, linked Maresca to the fraudulent claims. In December 2021, a United States Postal Inspector and USPS Office of Inspector General (OIG) Special Agent interviewed Maresca at his home in Newcastle, PA. During the interview, Maresca admitted to submitting more than 2,200 fraudulent claims and forging his family members’ signatures on USPS indemnity checks.”

The defendant faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in federal prison for each mail fraud count and a minimum of two years in federal prison on the aggravated identity theft count, according to the release on Justice.gov.

Ina Steiner

Ina Steiner is co-founder and Editor of EcommerceBytes and has been reporting on ecommerce since 1999. She’s a widely cited authority on marketplace selling and is author of “Turn eBay Data Into Dollars” (McGraw-Hill 2006). Her blog was featured in the book, “Blogging Heroes” (Wiley 2008). She is a member of the Online News Association (Sep 2005 – present) and Investigative Reporters and Editors (Mar 2006 – present). Follow her on Twitter at @ecommercebytes and send news tips to ina@ecommercebytes.com. See disclosure at EcommerceBytes.com/disclosure/.