Ex-clerk gets 7 1/2 years in Wyandanch post office robbery

A former clerk who, in a botched plot to retire on disability, helped plan the robbery of the Wyandanch post office where she worked was sentenced Monday to 7 1/2 years in federal prison.

Stephanie Lloyd, 28, of Laurelton had hoped that the trauma of the stickup would enable her to retire permanently on disability, prosecutors said. But her fellow plotters staged the $7,700 robbery in 2009 on a day Lloyd was not working.

Lloyd was convicted in 2012 of conspiracy to rob the post office, robbery and the use of a weapon in commission of a crime.

Although the judge sentenced her to 7 1/2 years, she will serve just five more years in prison after credit for the 2 1/2 years she has spent in jail since her arrest.

Before she was sentenced, Lloyd told U.S. District Judge Arthur Spatt in Central Islip that she had an 8-year-old daughter who she wouldn't be able to care for, and added, "I ask you for favor and mercy."

Before Lloyd was sentenced, an Eastern District federal prosecutor and Lloyd's defense attorney differed on her character.

The defense attorney, Robert LaRusso of Mineola, said his client had never been in trouble with the law before.

LaRusso said that during the 30 months she had been imprisoned since her conviction, Lloyd had an exemplary record, counseling prisoners and earning certificates in programs involving the Internet, food management, interview skills and Bible study.

At her trial, Lloyd maintained she was not involved in the planning of the robbery, but her then-boyfriend had tricked her into giving details of the post office's operation.

But Lara Treinis Gatz, a prosecutor in the office of U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch, said in her pre-sentencing remarks that not only was Lloyd intimately involved in the planning, but she had also suggested it.

"She didn't want to work anymore. She wanted to go on disability," hoping to claim that the robbery had so traumatized her that she could not function, Treinis Gatz said.

At Lloyd's trial, Treinis Gatz noted that Lloyd had taken a workers' compensation leave in 2006, after the robbery.

Gatz said Lloyd's first job had been at the post office when she was 18.

Gatz said, however, you can't count on criminals: Lloyd's then-boyfriend, Travis Walker, and his crew staged the robbery at a time when Lloyd was off.

A postal inspector, Tosha Dennis, was credited at the trial with solving the case. Dennis suspected the robbery had to be an inside job.

She checked all the telephone numbers that used cellphone towers near the post office about the time of the 5 a.m. robbery. Dennis then checked whether any of those numbers had been used to make phone calls to employees of the Wyandanch post office.

There had been 467 calls between Lloyd's and Walker's numbers in the month of the robbery, Dennis testified at the trial.

Walker, of South Ozone Park, was convicted in 2011 of masterminding the robbery and those of six banks. He awaits sentencing.

By Robert E. Kessler

Robert.Kessler@newsday.com

Bob Kessler covers federal law, including law enforcement agencies such as the FBI, DEA, IRS and ATF, as well as the federal courts.