Man arrested for allegedly vandalizing mailbox

Mail for local businesses on Centre Pointe Parkway in Santa Clarita was stolen Feb. 2. Jana Adkins/The Signal
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A Canyon Country man was arrested this week on suspicion of vandalizing a mailbox or mail, the latest in a series of recent incidents involving the destruction of personal mail.

Adam Price, 29, was arrested Sunday night by deputies of the Santa Clarita Valley Sheriff’s Station on suspicion of committing a felony that carries a fine or jail time.

The arrest marks the latest in a series of incidents in which Santa Clarita Valley mail has been stolen, dumped, destroyed or pilfered for personal information used in identity theft.

Three weeks ago, deputies arrested a 21-year-old man on suspicion of vandalism to mailbox or mail, a felony.

“This was a man arrested for possessing shaved keys one of which appears to be able to open a mail box,” Lt. Brenda Cambra who oversees the station’s Detective Section, told The Signal at that time. “There was no mail found with it.”

On Wednesday, Daniel Arthur Appleby, a construction worker who lives in Canyon Country, was arrested shortly before 1 a.m. on suspicion of vandalism to mailbox or mail.

Bail has been set for both suspects – Appleby and Price – at $20,000 each.

Shaved keys are legitimate keys that are ground down, according to a California detective who has written about them and has also seen them used for gaining access to mailboxes.

In the last month, inspectors with the U.S. Postal Service have been investigating three local incidents of mass mail thefts including seven discarded garbage bags full of mail and the ransacking of two “neighborhood mailbox” units resulting in mail stolen from 40 Santa Clarita Valley businesses.

Also still being investigated is an incident in which mail thieves broke into a neighborhood mailbox on Avenue Scott and stole mail from the mailboxes of 20 businesses.

The offense is described as “whoever willfully or maliciously injures, tears down or destroys any letter box or other receptacle intended or used for the receipt or delivery of mail on any mail route, or breaks open the same or willfully or maliciously injures, defaces or destroys any mail deposited therein, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.”

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