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Stamp machine thieves caught after tip
By MICHAEL SANDLER © St. Petersburg Times, published January 21, 2001 A routine gathering of local law enforcement agencies ended with a tip that led to a stolen stamp vending machine and the men charged with taking it New Year's weekend from a New Tampa Post Office. Linda Walker, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, said Tampa Police and postal inspectors charged Calvin Stephenson, 20, of Tampa, and Benson Price Jr., 30, of Seffner, with burglary and grand theft. The men confessed to the crime Jan. 12 at the Pinellas County Jail, where they were being held on prior grand theft charges. Authorities learned of the additional crimes at a summit earlier this month held for local law enforcement agencies. Postal inspectors belong to a federal branch of law enforcement authorized to make arrests. "We had gone to a Tampa Bay area intelligence unit meeting and it was a sharing of intelligence," Walker said. According to Tampa Police, the men entered the U.S. Post Office on Bruce B. Downs Boulevard during New Year's weekend, pried a stamp dispenser loose from the wall and carried off the 125-pound vending machine and its contents. Walker said the men told authorities where they abandoned the machine, which was later recovered in a state beyond repair from a field across from the Faulkenburg Road Jail. "It won't be put back in the post office," she said. - Michael Sandler can be reached at (813) 226-3472 or sandler@sptimes.com.
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