ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, January 31, 1997 TAG: 9701310085
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: NEW YORK
SOURCE: Associated Press
Someone is sending prominent black people United Parcel Service envelopes defaced with bigoted messages.
UPS executives say they didn't know the dozen next-day air envelopes had passed through their system in December and January until contacted this month by The Associated Press.
Places they were sent to included the Washington offices of two Chicago congressmen, Jesse Jackson Jr. and Bobby Rush; to the New York City home and office of New York State Comptroller H. Carl McCall; and to former Assistant U.S. Attorney for Civil Rights Deval Patrick.
After looking into the complaints, UPS insisted none of its 339,000 employees was involved and suggested it may be an extortion scam.
The criminal investigation involves at least four states and the District of Columbia.
UPS spokesman Ken Sternad said the company's tracking system missed the scrawled words ``niger'' and ``nigers day.'' Envelopes travel with labels up, and the slurs were written on the undersides.
He said UPS had traced many of the envelopes ``to a single source'' in St. Paul, Minn. The culprit could be charged with aggravated harassment, or with violating federal civil rights statutes.
LENGTH: Short : 34 linesby CNB