NATION : Mailman Gets New Address: Prison

PENSACOLA, Fla. — A former mail carrier whose home was stacked with tons of undelivered junk mail was sentenced today to a year and a day in federal prison for failing to deliver two first-class letters.

William Ryan, 59, told the court that he felt he couldn’t deliver all the mail assigned to him on his rural route and started leaving a few pieces in his car every day about three years ago. “Things just seemed to snowball,” Ryan told U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson.

The first-class letters were discovered among nearly 500,000 pieces of mostly advertising brochures, catalogues, sweepstakes offers, give-aways and other so-called junk mail found heaped in and around his home last August by authorities following up on a tip.