Postal Service Employee Fakes Having Cancer to Work From Home

A Postal Service employee admitted to faking a cancer diagnosis in order to work from home and claim over 100 days of sick leave.

A Postal Service worker has pleaded guilty to faking cancer in order to work from home and claim hundreds of hours in sick leave.

Caroline Zarate Boyle, 59, of Highlands Ranch, Colorado was originally indicted in March. The allegations at that time said she faked having cancer in order to claim over 100 days of sick leave and be allowed to work from home. She effectuated this fraud by forging several doctor notes regarding her alleged treatment and e-mailing them to her supervisor.

However, employees from the offices of the doctors involved told special agents from the United States Postal Service, Office of Inspector General that the notes were fake and Boyle had never received treatment there. Some of the notes had inaccurate information, including misspellings of the name of the doctor she was allegedly seeing.

The Postal Service IG determined that she continued the scheme for approximately 20 months.

This case is being investigated by the U.S. Postal Service’s Office of the Inspector General and is being prosecuted by Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Dan Burrows.

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Ian Smith is one of the co-founders of FedSmith.com. He has over 20 years of combined experience in media and government services, having worked at two government contracting firms and an online news and web development company prior to his current role at FedSmith.