A man with a long criminal rap sheet has admitted to participating in robbing letter carriers in Edina and Brooklyn Center of their work keys at gunpoint.
Rubin David Adams, 27, pleaded guilty Tuesday in U.S. District Court in St. Paul to two counts of armed robbery in connection with the holdups on back-to-back days in November 2023.
Federal guidelines call for Adams to receive a sentence ranging from slightly more than nine years to nearly 11½ years in prison. However, federal judges have full discretion when sentencing defendants and are not bound by the guidelines calculation. Adams remains jailed ahead of sentencing, which has yet to be scheduled.
U.S. Postal Service keys are not only valuable for stealing money, checks and financial transaction cards out of mailboxes, but they also can be sold to other people, according to federal officials.
Postal carrier robberies climbed to 643 in 2023, an increase of nearly 30%, and the number of robberies resulting in injuries doubled to 61 last year, according to the U.S. Postal Inspection Service.
All told, robberies grew sixfold over the past decade and the number of postal carriers held at gunpoint increased even more, according to an Associated Press analysis of postal statistics.
According to court documents:
Shortly before 3:30 p.m. on Nov. 18, 2023, Adams drove with a man to Edina and parked an SUV in front of a mail truck in the 5700 block of W. 66th Street. The accomplice approached the letter carrier, pointed a handgun and demanded any keys for a mailbox. Having none, the carrier gave the gunman keys for two Postal Service vehicles. Adams’ accomplice got back in the SUV, and the two drove off.