Mail thief
gets maximum
prison term

Judge Ezra says the penalty
for mail theft should
be even higher

By Linda Hosek
Star-Bulletin

Expressions of love and sympathy; government checks for the disabled; cash for kids away from home: The mail brings it all.

When Rex Cherry stole three months worth of mail to get money for his drug habit, he committed what a federal judge described as a "most serious crime."

And despite an early guilty plea that saved the government a trial, he received a prison term at the top of a range from 30 to 37 months.

"I'm imposing the maximum," U.S. District Judge David Ezra said yesterday. "I quite frankly wish the maximum were higher."

Ezra said Congress should rethink penalties for mail theft, saying its impact on people was "absolutely tremendous."

Cherry declined to comment before Ezra sentenced him, but later acknowledged that he wouldn't want his son to grow up to be a criminal and drug user like him.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Omer Poirier said Cherry and others sentenced for stealing mail in recent years have done so to buy crystal methamphetamine for their habit.

A woman who watched Cherry's sentencing said out of court that she now wanted the state to prosecute him for items she said he took from her house.

Joy Ritchey, a Maunawili resident, said he "took every anniversary gift my husband gave me for 32 years." She said police told her they recovered items taken in the burglary at her house from Cherry's car.

She said he also stole blank checks during the November burglary and cashed one at a bank.

Ritchey said she gave police his license plate number a week after her burglary and it matched the one of the car he was in when he was arrested Jan. 22 for stolen mail.

Ezra called Cherry a "walking crime wave" and said stealing money to pay for his drug habit was "absolutely deplorable."

"Some (victims) are the most vulnerable in society," he said. "They wait for a payment that never comes."

Ezra didn't require Cherry to make full restitution of $11,305 because he lacked the ability to repay it. But Ezra said that if Cherry, 32, continued to commit crimes, the government would cease to try to rehabilitate him.

Cherry's criminal history includes thefts, stealing cars and criminal property damage, dating to about 1991, Poirier said.

He said police arrested Cherry after he sped from a Kailua construction site.