OAKLAND PARK, Fla. (WPLG) – A United States Postal Service employee is facing criminal charges after authorities say she stole a winning lottery ticket from the mail and fraudulently claimed the prize.<\/p>\n
Investigators identified the worker as 28-year-old Lakaysha Lockhart, a USPS employee assigned to a post office in Oakland Park.<\/p>\n
A Tampa-area woman won $2,600 on a Pick 4 lottery ticket and decided to gift the winnings to a relative in South Florida. She mailed the unclaimed ticket through the Postal Service.<\/p>\n
More than a week passed and the ticket never arrived. The victim contacted police, triggering an investigation.<\/p>\n
Detectives determined the lottery prize had been redeemed at a Florida Lottery field office in Miami Lakes \u2014 just five days after the initial drawing.<\/p>\n
Authorities say Lockhart presented the ticket and collected the cash, using her position within the post office and high-tech equipment to take the prize.<\/p>\n
Lockhart faces charges of grand theft, a series of petty theft charges, possession of stolen mail, and using a two-way communication device to facilitate a felony. Records show she has already bonded out of jail.<\/p>\n
Postal inspectors are urging the community to report suspected fraudulent acts within the postal system.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 WPLG via CNN Newsource. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"OAKLAND PARK, Fla. (WPLG) – A United States Postal Service employee is facing criminal charges after authorities say…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":360355,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,146830,29,146418,146827,146826,146833,146829,146828,146831,146832,146823,146825,146824],"class_list":["post-360354","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-lottery-prize-stolen","tag-florida-news","tag-lakaysha-lockhart","tag-lakaysha-lockhart-arrest","tag-lakaysha-lockhart-oakland-park","tag-lakaysha-lockhart-oakland-park-usps","tag-lakaysha-lockhart-stolen-lottery-ticket","tag-lakaysha-lockhart-usps-worker-arrest","tag-oakland-park-usps","tag-oakland-park-usps-worker-arrest","tag-postal-worker-lottery-ticket-theft","tag-stolen-lottery-ticket-mail-fraud","tag-usps-employee-arrested-florida"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360354","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=360354"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360354\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/360355"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=360354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=360354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=360354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}