CLEVELAND, Ohio — Two former Cleveland mail carriers accused of delivering marijuana to a drug dealer while on their routes were placed on electronic monitoring Tuesday.
Devon Blake, 25, was sentenced to eight months on electronic monitoring and three years’ probation after pleading guilty to accepting bribes as a public official. Rashon Blake, 25, was sentenced to six months’ electronic monitoring and three months’ supervision after also pleading to a bribery charge.
U.S. District Judge Patricia Gaughan sentenced the two.
The duo, along with Tamika Embry, Aaron Kelly and Dartagnan Mitchell, were indicted in May on drug and bribery charges. The quintet worked with Kevin Collins for several months in 2015 to establish a method of delivering the drugs, according to charging documents.
The mail carriers gave Collins their work schedules and their postal routes. Collins would then have packages with marijuana shipped to addresses on their routes on the days the carriers were scheduled to work, prosecutors said.
The carriers delivered the packages to Collins instead of the addresses on the packages, and he would pay them, court documents state.
The defendants are considered public officials under to federal law. They either resigned or lost their jobs.
Devon Blake’s sentencing memo says that he agreed to work with Collins because he needed the money to pay bills.
Rashon Blake’s sentencing memo says that he has never taken drugs or drank alcohol and that his crimes were an aberration in a life that otherwise involved playing music, working and volunteering.
All five mail carriers have pleaded guilty to charges connected to the scheme. Kelly and Mitchell will be sentenced Thursday. Embry will be sentenced in April.
Collins was sentenced Feb. 2 to eight years in federal prison. He pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute five drug and firearms charges.
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