Miami man accused of stealing mail from residential mailboxes along Treasure Coast
STUART — A Miami man is accused of targeting rural neighborhoods throughout the Treasure Coast to steal mail out of people’s mailboxes, according to arrest records and Martin County sheriff’s officials.
Walter Suarez, 49, of the 3200 block of Northwest 18th Street, in Miami, is in custody at the Martin County Jail facing 40 counts of petty theft, valued between $100 to $750, and one count of unlawful possession of personal identification information, arrest records show.
He was apprehended after midnight Saturday after Martin County sheriff’s detectives - observing from a helicopter - watched Suarez drive a Cadillac along Kanner Highway and take mail from several mailboxes.
What is Suarez accused of doing?
On Monday, Chief Deputy John Budensiek said on Friday night, the St. Lucie County Sheriff’s Office reported tracking a man in a Cadillac suspected of stealing mail after deputies “observed mail being thrown out of the window as the vehicle was driving.”
Some of the mail collected by St. Lucie County sheriff’s deputies contained personal identification information belonging to residents in Indiantown, he said.
When Suarez’s Cadillac was seen entering Martin County, Budensiek said deputies conducted surveillance from the air, which included watching him on Kanner Highway exit his vehicle, open mailboxes and removed the items inside.
Soon after, Martin deputies were able to stop Suarez using a “vehicle immobilization tactic,” on Southwest Bridge Road, west of Southwest Pratt Whitney Road.
“Apparently he was opening the mail as he was driving down the road because in some cases, he was discarding the junk mail back out of the window,” Budensiek said.
Once Suarez was in custody, investigators found a “trash bag full of mail in the back of the vehicle,” Budensiek said.
Suarez faced one theft charge for each of the 40 mailboxes he’s accused of stealing mail from, he said.
Budensiek said Suarez is expected to face additional charges in Indian River and St. Lucie counties, in addition to possible federal offenses.
He’s being held at the Martin County Jail, according to Budensiek.
It was unclear Monday if Suarez was being represented by an attorney.
What do authorities believe was being done with the stolen mail?
He said Suarez has no criminal history and investigators believe he was working alone. He’s suspected of stealing from mailboxes from Okeechobee, Indian River, St. Lucie and Martin counties in addition to Naples, Budensiek said.
Deputies don’t know yet what Suarez was doing with the mail, Budensiek said.
“He could be stealing tax refund checks … or he could be just simply stealing checks out of the mail, washing those checks, or just trying to cash those checks,” Budensiek said. “He could be stealing credit card information … the havoc he can wreak on our citizens is relatively endless.”
What Suarez was doing was “alarming,” Budensiek said, adding, “he clearly knew what he was doing.”
“He was targeting rural areas of Matin County; areas where the mailboxes were not necessarily able to be seen from the house,” he said. “So middle of the night, he's out driving up and down Kanner Highway, in the more rural sections, where people would think that their mail should be safe in the mailbox.”
Once in custody, Suarez claimed to be a premiere Uber driver, and was in the area looking for potential customers. He said he found the bag of mail on the roadway.
“He said he just happened to find it along the road and picked it up,” Budensiek said.
Detectives will be contacting the people whose mail was recovered from Suarez’s car, Budensiek said.
What should people do if their mail is missing or believed to be stolen?
Anyone who believes their mail might be missing or stolen are encouraged to contact the U.S. Postal Service, he said.
“They are the only ones that know when mail is shipped from one point to another and they can tell you that,” Budensiek said.
He warned to never put checks inside a residential mailbox for pick up and to consider setting up a mail delivery alert with the U.S. Postal Service.
“If you have mail that you want to be delivered safely, take it to your local postal drop box - the big blue boxes - or to the Post Office itself, and drop the mail there,” he said.
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Melissa E. Holsman is the legal affairs reporter for TCPalm and Treasure Coast Newspapers and is writer and co-host of "Uncertain Terms," a true-crime podcast. Reach her at melissa.holsman@tcpalm.com. If you are a subscriber, thank you. If not, become a subscriber to get the latest local news on the Treasure Coast.
This article originally appeared on Treasure Coast Newspapers: Miami man faces charges related to stealing mail from TC mailboxes
