A former U.S. Postal Service carrier in Torrance was sentenced Monday to more than five years for stealing mail, using stolen bank cards, checks and unemployment benefits to fund luxury shopping sprees and international vacations — all while bragging about it online.
Mary Ann Magdamit, 31, of Carson was sentenced to 63 months in federal prison and ordered to pay $660,200 in restitution, according to the U.S. attorney’s office. Magdamit pleaded guilty in August to conspiracy to commit bank fraud.
“Especially for the poorest Americans, who are often unbanked, they rely on the mail to deliver their government benefits in the form of Treasury checks or EDD debit cards, precisely what [Magdamit] chose to steal,” prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memorandum.
Federal investigators traced more than 100 cards reported stolen by customers in Torrance to Magdamit’s regular postal route through activation records, phone data and social media posts.
Magdamit admitted she sorted mail on the street, plucked credit cards from her route, and often took them home to activate or sell to criminal partners, federal authorities said. She often flaunted her wealth on Instagram, posting stacks of hundred-dollar bills and shopping bags from Louis Vuitton, Dior and Palm Angels.
“I scored the whole week of credit cards,” she wrote in a Telegram message to an associate.
The thefts paid for trips to Turks and Caicos and Aruba in 2024, destinations federal investigators linked to fraudulent charges on stolen accounts.
The scheme began as early as 2022 and continued even after agents searched her home in December 2024, when investigators found 133 stolen credit and debit cards, 16 U.S. Treasury checks, dozens of photographed checks worth more than $26,000, luxury goods and an illegal “ghost gun.” She resigned from the U.S. Postal Service days later.
Magdamit also admitted selling stolen cards for about $500 each and acknowledged using victims’ unemployment benefits cards to withdraw cash — telling agents she had “about $5,000 worth of currency” in her apartment from ATM withdrawals.
Despite the raid in December, prosecutors said she “still found a way to obtain credit cards from the mail and further commit fraud.” Surveillance captured Magdamit using a stolen card to buy goods at the Apple Store, Diesel and Disneyland early this year, and she later bragged about a Hawaii vacation in a March Instagram post.
“[The purchases] do not reflect the purchases made by someone who is using stolen funds because they are in need of money for food or other basic human necessities,” prosecutors wrote.
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