A Delaware County man will spend the next six-and-a-half years behind bars after, officials say, he was sentenced for his role in a scheme that saw checks from the U.S. Treasury stolen by former U.S. Postal Service employees before the stolen checks were resold online. On Friday morning, officia ls announced that Alexander Telewoda, 26, of Clifton Heights, was sentenced to 78 months of incarceration and three years of supervised release, while being forced to pay $10.8 million in restitution and forfeiting over $162,000 after conspiring with three others to steal and sell thousands of U.S. Treasury checks. According to officials, Telewoda — along with Saahir Irby, 28, and Tauheed Tucker, 24, both of Philadelphia, and Cory Scott, 26, of Ardmore — pleaded guilty in May to conspiracy to steal government funds, theft of government funds, and mail theft. In this scheme, investigators found between June of 2023 through September of 2024, Irby and Tucker were employed as processing clerks for the U.S. Postal Service. In this role, they stole thousands of envelopes containing U.S. Treasury checks from mail sorting machines. The pair then sold these checks to Scott and Telewoda, investigators found, who would then sell the stolen checks online. Through this scheme, officials believe over $84 million worth of checks were stolen and approximately $11 million worth of the stolen checks were successfully negotiated at various financial institutions. However, both Irby and Tucker were eventually fired from the U.S. Postal Service. But, officials said, Telewoda continued the scheme after he found a new source for stolen U.S. Treasury checks. By the time of his arrest, officials said, Telewoda had stolen checks totaling a value of over $121 million, including another $3 million worth of stolen checks that were found at his home at the time of his arrest. The other three individuals involved in this scheme, Irby, Tucker and Scott, are scheduled to be sentenced in October. ...read more read less