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COLUMBIA REGIONAL AIRPORT -- During the Christmas holiday season, you might remember KRCG did a story on how gift cards and money were disappearing from envelopes that passed through the United States Postal Service Processing and Distribution Center at the Columbia Regional Airport.

Postal Officials blamed the problem on poorly made envelopes and malfunctioning automated machinery.

Our Factfinder Team has learned another possible reason why grandma’s Christmas check never showed up the mail.

Marie Birmingham-Harlin said a surveillance camera caught her former boss stealing gift cards from the mail and gift certificates used to reward employees at Columbia’s postal distribution center.  She says her old boss had an annual salary of about $90,000 and was only 2 years away from retirement when he allegedly stole from postal employees and customers.

Birmingham-Harlin said, “I hope they prosecute.  If they don’t, then that’s just telling all of the supervisors, go ahead and do what you want.  We’ll just let you retire or let you move on your way and not do anything for it.  I was fired because I had a workman’s compensation case and I had health issues.”

Birmingham-Harlin said postal inspectors physically removed her old supervisor from the Columbia plant.  She said authorities checked inside his car that was parked in the plant’s parking lot and allegedly found some stolen property.  KRCG is not reporting the name of the accused supervisor because he has not been officially charged with a crime.  The Office of the Inspector General is handling the case.  The accused supervisor still has his job.

United States Postal Service spokeswoman Valerie Welsch said, “He has been placed in a non-working status or what the postal service calls an emergency suspension.  He’s been placed on this status due to an on-going investigation.”

Birmingham-Harlin said the accused supervisor has gotten away with harassment and retaliation against employees for years.

Birmingham-Harlin said, “I don’t like thieves.  I don’t like liars.  He ends up being both of them.”

Mail tampering is a federal offense with a maximum penalty of 5 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.