A 62-year-old Michigan man was sentenced for a racist attack against a mail carrier who left flyers promoting former Vice President Kamala Harris’ 2024 presidential campaign in his mailbox last year.
Russell Valleau will spend 12 months in jail for assaulting the postal worker in September 2024.
According to federal prosecutors, Valleau aggressively approached the postal worker, a Black woman, as she was sitting in her postal truck.
He was upset about receiving mailers promoting Harris, saying he did not want that “Black b— in my mailbox,” and even directed racist insults at the mail carrier.
When the postal worker told Valleau he could leave the unwanted mail in his mailbox, Valleau only continued his tirade. It was when she asked him to step away from her truck that he lunged at her with a knife.
His attack was thwarted after the woman sprayed him in the face with USPS-issued mace and drove away.
Even after he was detained by police, Valleau only continued his offensive, slur-ridden outburst. Investigators say he called the letter carrier a “f—king smelly n—ger.”
When officers reprimanded him for his language, he responded, “Oh, you like n—gers.”
Valleau was convicted in February after a three-day trial, and it took a jury only two hours to deliberate his fate before returning with a guilty verdict.
In a sentencing memorandum obtained by Law&Crime, Valleau’s attorney, James Amberg, claimed that the 62-year-old is not “inherently racist,” and attributed his heinous conduct to “a level of mental health issues coupled with the use of alcohol.”
Amberg requested that Valleau be sentenced to time served because he had been in custody since his arrest last September.
“What this case is not is a case where Mr. Valleau went out looking for a confrontation because of receiving political mail. This is a case where Mr. Valleau, intoxicated, wanted to confront the victim over him not receiving a Social Security check he was looking for,” Amberg wrote in the memorandum. “His life appears to be an endless cycle of alcohol, jail, alcohol, jail … Mr. Valleau is not evil, he actually has a peppy personality once you get to know him! But the reality is that our society shuns the mentally ill, and there are insufficient programs to help people like Mr. Valleau.”
After Valleau’s conviction, Acting U.S. Attorney Julie A. Beck stated, “A letter carrier was simply trying to do her job, and this defendant physically attacked her while using racist and offensive language. This type of behavior has no place in our community and will not be tolerated.”
