USPS contractor pleads guilty in MD conspiracy case

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A national account manager for a cardboard box manufacturer pleaded guilty in Maryland this week to a charge of conspiring to pay bribes to a U.S. Postal Service official who would in exchange steer contract awards toward the business.

In a plea agreement, James Griffin also admitted to making false statements to the FBI about his relationship with the Postal Service official and a consultant who admitted to serving as a middleman for the bribes. Griffin was scheduled to be sentenced in October at U.S. District Court for Maryland in Greenbelt.

Griffin was charged in April after the Maryland-based consultant, James E. Lee Jr., pleaded guilty to federal conspiracy and bribery offenses. Griffin was accused of paying Lee about $51,103 in consulting fees to obtain confidential information from the Postal Service official about pricing and for the official to influence contract decisions.

Griffin entered his guilty plea Tuesday before U.S. District Judge Lydia Kay Griggsby. His lawyer, former Assistant U.S. Attorney Aaron Zelinsky, did not immediately return a request for comment Friday.

In court filings, prosecutors referred to emails and text messages between Griffin and Lee in which the two appeared to be arranging payments, including for a planned elk hunting trip, to the Postal Service official in the leadup to the Michigan-based manufacturer receiving a lucrative contract award.

After receiving a grand jury subpoena for communications between him and the official, Griffin deleted almost 90 text messages, according to his plea agreement. In a voluntary interview with the FBI, he said he did not discuss confidential procurement information with the official and did not have conversations with Lee with the expectation of receiving any such information, the agreement says.

The plea agreement says the deletions and Griffin’s interview answers were “for the purpose of obstructing, impeding and impairing” the FBI and grand jury investigations.

Conspiracy to commit bribery carries a maximum sentence of five years, though prosecutors agreed in plea documents that the guidelines for Griffin’s sentence placed his potential jail time at under four years. He also faces a fine of up to $150,000.

Lee had been scheduled for sentencing Tuesday, but that hearing was apparently postponed. Court records filed after his March guilty plea are sealed. A motion to seal those documents described them as “scheduling-related.”

The official, a Maryland resident who was separated from the Postal Service in 2024 after working there for over two decades, has not been charged. He was not named in court records.