A postal manager from Kenner faces a 30 month federal prison sentence."RYAN S. CORTEZ, age 47, of Des Allemands, Louisiana, was sentenced today for Misappropriation of Postal Funds," according to a news release. "CORTEZ stole over $630,000 in U.S. stamps and sold them on eBay."The United States Attorney's office says special agents with the U.S. Postal Service were notified by PayPal and eBay that someone was selling large quantities of U.S. Postal stamps."During their investigation, Postal OIG agents determined CORTEZ withdrew thousands of dollars on a regular basis at the Harrah’s Casino in New Orleans. Harrah’s records revealed CORTEZ lost over $667,000 since 2011 and lost over $220,000 in 2017. Postal records indicate CORTEZ earned an annual salary of $70,818."The news release explains that when special agents executed a federal search warrant, they found Cortez was ordering hundreds of thousands of dollars in extra stamps for the North Kenner Post Office."CORTEZ said he was addicted to gambling and the money obtained from the illegal sale of stamps was to support his gambling addiction. CORTEZ confirmed he manipulated stamp stock counts by using another supervisor’s password to access the computer system. As a result, existing internal controls failed to detect the theft of these stamps."Federal authorities say they don't see cases like this very often."CORTEZ's illegal activities constitute one of the largest internal Postal thefts by a Postal Service employee in the history of the U.S. Postal Service."The sentence includes prison time and paying the money back."United States District Court Judge Barry W. Ashe sentenced CORTEZ to 30 months imprisonment, followed by three (3) years of supervised release, and ordered CORTEZ to pay restitution in the amount of $856,801.41."