Arrest made in Coarsegold mail theft case

Madera County sheriff’s deputies have arrested a suspect in a series of mail thefts that began in November.

Beginning in November, the Madera County Sheriff’s Office received several calls from the Coarsegold area complaining about thefts from residential mailbox clusters.

Due to the recurring nature of these incidents, Madera County Sheriff’s detectives initiated an investigation, and were able to identify a house in the 43000 block of Running Deer Drive as possibly being related to these thefts.

On April 10, Madera County Sheriff’s detectives, assisted by the Madera County Sheriff’s Problem Oriented Policing Team, served a search warrant at that location, where deputies located a large quantity of stolen mail linking Britteny Ford, a 27-year-old female resident of Coarsegold, to multiple mailbox cluster thefts which occurred between November of 2017 and January of 2018.

A large portion of these thefts took place in the Yosemite Lakes Park area.

Ford was subsequently arrested and booked in Madera County Jail for felony identity theft. The investigation remains ongoing, and Ford is expected to face additional theft-related charges as the investigation continues.