RICHMOND, Va. — Mail theft, an ongoing issue in communities across Central Virginia, will soon face stronger local enforcement. Starting July 1, a new Virginia law will make mail theft a Class 6 felony, giving local prosecutors the ability to bring charges in addition to existing federal penalties.
"The goal was to mirror the federal law so that prosecutors had another tool in their tool belt," said Sen. Saddam Salim (D-Fairfax), the law's co-author.
Salim said the issue was brought to his attention ahead of the 2025 General Assembly session by bankers and other people who send a lot of mail to customers and clients.
"They...said, 'Look, we send out a lot of mail and a lot of times our customers are not getting them. Or when they do get them, it's months later.' And it's really the content of that mail, your personal information, banking details, that really get caught up in future crimes that could happen," Salim said. "The other part was, when you have grandma or whoever — they still receive Social Security checks and other information via mail and if that goes missing, they have to call into those offices get it reissued. That takes a lot of time."
While mail theft has long been a federal crime, Salim said federal prosecutors do not always have the resources to handle all those cases. many cases couldn't be pursued due to limited federal resources.
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"So, our solution was really to...mirror that same regulation so that we allow Commonwealth's Attorneys throughout the Commonwealth to go and prosecute these crimes if they deem those are necessary in their jurisdictions."
"It actually is a very important tool and some people have been very impacted by it in a negative way," said Alexandria Commonwealth's Attorney Bryan Porter, who pointed to a large case in Northern Virginia from several years ago.
"The other problem that this bill will tackle is that the moment those papers are stolen, to some extent, we are having to make charging decisions. If we can prove the case based on the value of the paper that was being stolen — the actual five cents it takes to print a check — as opposed to the amount that was put on the check, and it would only become a felony when those checks were actually being tendered," he added. "Is it really worth it if somebody steals 500 pieces of paper? We can only charge them with a misdemeanor when they're actually committing some relatively serious offenses by stealing the paper. This bill addresses that problem."
The law covers more than just stealing mail—it also addresses destruction of mail, damaging mailboxes, or stealing and using mail keys.
"It doesn't necessarily have to be from your porch or your mailbox anymore," Salim noted.
Currently, the new law only covers mail delivered through the U.S. Postal Service, though Salim indicated it could potentially be expanded to other delivery services in the future.
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