John H. Durham, United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut, today announced that on February 16, 2018, Rachael Alexander, also known as Rachael Vierling, 40, of Stratford, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Janet Bond Arterton in New Haven to 41 months of imprisonment, followed by three years of supervised release, for participating in two fraud schemes.

According to court documents and statements made in court, the first scheme involved the theft of postal money orders. Alexander and her husband, Marc Anthony Alexander, devised a scheme to steal blocks of blank postal money orders from the U.S. Post Office in Old Greenwich. The Alexanders and others then imprinted the money orders with various denominations using a computer font designed to make them appear to be authentic.

The Alexanders recruited Bernard Harris, of Bridgeport, into the scheme to organize others to cash the money orders, or deposit them into numerous bank accounts, either at an ATM or at a teller window. Harris recruited at least five individuals and paid them a portion of the proceeds. He then turned the bulk of the money over to the Alexanders. The Alexanders compensated Harris by giving him additional money orders that he cashed and converted to his own use.

The loss from this scheme was $313,570.

This investigation was conducted by the Connecticut Financial Crimes Task Force¸ U.S. Postal Service Office of Inspector General, U.S. Postal Inspection Service, U.S. Secret Service, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Westport Police Department and Greenwich Police Department. The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Ray Miller.