Pitt trial gets underway
The trial of a Pittsburgh postmaster accused of intimidating subordinates who saw him open packages began Wednesday before an Allegheny County jury.
Daniel Davis, 51, of Canonsburg faces charges of obstructing justice and four counts each of witness intimidation, criminal coercion and official oppression brought by the Allegheny County district attorney’s office.
The prosecution contends Davis instructed postal employees to notify him when they encountered suspicious packages, threatened employees in order to get the packages from August 2014 to January 2015 and pressured them to lie to federal investigators about him opening packages.
Assistant District Attorney Brian Catanzarite told jurors Davis “took it upon himself” to investigate drug trafficking even though that wasn’t part of his job.
“He was not a narcotic detective,” the prosecutor said. “He was not law enforcement.”
Davis, a Marine Corps veteran who worked for 17 years in the Postal Service, became acting postmaster in Pittsburgh in February 2014, previously holding that position in Toledo, Ohio.
His attorney, Joe Chester, said postal inspectors there trained Davis in interdicting mail, which he did, and turned contraband over to postal inspectors. He continued the practice when he arrived in Pittsburgh in February 2014 until December of that year, when a supervisor told him to turn suspicious packages over to postal inspectors unopened, Chester said.
“The only training that Dan Davis had was from the postal inspectors in Toledo,” Chester said.
Catanzarite said he planned to call employees Davis allegedly intimidated with threats against their physical safety or job security to conceal his opening unauthorized opening of mail – a federal offense with which Davis has never been charged – from investigators with the Postal Service’s Office of the Inspector General.
“Mr. Davis abused his position as the postmaster of Pittsburgh to cover up his crimes, to abuse the public’s trust,” Catanzarite said.
Davis hasn’t been charged with any federal crime in connection with the allegations.
Chester told jurors he’d show inconsistencies in some witnesses’ accounts of events.
Davis is free on $10,000 bond. The trial is expected to continue into next week.