Three people were arrested after postal inspectors said they caught two suspects removing mail from a collection box outside a Niagara Falls post office using a key stolen from a letter carrier last year.
Carwin Lidge, 27, of Amherst, and Jenny Alemany, 40, and Richard Law, 29, both of Buffalo, face a federal conspiracy-to-commit-mail-theft charge, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of New York. The charge carries a maximum of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine; it has not been proven in court.
The U.S. Postal Inspection Service began investigating a series of nine robberies of letter carriers in Erie and Niagara counties in October 2025, prosecutors said. The carriers’ specialized keys could open blue mail collection boxes.
On Dec. 5, 2025, a carrier on Forest Avenue in Niagara Falls surrendered her key after a man concealed part of his face, pointed a hand inside his sweatshirt pocket toward her and demanded the “gold key,” according to the criminal complaint. Investigators said the stolen key could access collection boxes across the Niagara Falls area.
Postal inspectors were watching the La Salle Post Office early Monday, Oct. 5, when they received notice that a collection box outside the Main Street Post Office had been opened. At about 2:35 a.m., they saw a car with a burned-out taillight stop near the La Salle office and two people get out with a large black bag, the complaint says. Surveillance video showed a third person in the front passenger seat.
One of the two people appeared to keep watch while the other used a key to open the employee access panel of a drive-up collection box, removed the mail inside and put it in a backpack, prosecutors said. Postal inspectors and Niagara Falls police moved in as the pair returned to the car and arrested all three after a brief attempt to flee.
Investigators recovered the backpack of mail and the postal key they said had been stolen from the carrier in December. The Postal Inspection Service and Niagara Falls Police Department investigated the case; Assistant U.S. Attorney Franz Wright is prosecuting it.
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