A former United States Postal Service postmaster in western Kansas has admitted stealing more than $57,000 from the agency while running a small‑town branch, federal prosecutors said on Tuesday. Joyce Smith, who served as postmaster in Scott City from January 2023 to February 2025, pleaded guilty to theft by a government employee after a routine audit uncovered the embezzlement.
Smith's role as postmaster placed her in charge of both the administrative and day‑to‑day operations of the Scott City post office, a position that relied heavily on trust. According to the United States Attorney's Office for the District of Kansas, that trust began to unravel when internal checks flagged discrepancies in cash and cheque handling over a two‑year period. What initially looked like accounting errors turned, investigators say, into evidence of a systematic scheme.
