NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.

United States Court of Appeals 

for the Federal Circuit

__________________________ 

FREDERICK S. MOSLEY, 

Petitioner,

v.

UNITED STATES POSTAL SERVICE,

Respondent.

__________________________ 

2012-3182

__________________________ 

Petition for review of the Merit Systems Protection 

Board in No. AT0752110939-I-1.

___________________________ 

Decided: January 15, 2013

___________________________ 

FREDERICK S. MOSLEY, Panama City, Florida, pro se. 

MICHAEL D. SNYDER, Trial Attorney, Commercial Litigation Branch, Civil Division, United States Department 

of Justice, of Washington, DC, for respondent. With him 

on the brief were STUART F. DELERY, Acting Assistant 

Attorney General, JEANNE E. DAVIDSON, Director, and 

DONALD E. KINNER, Assistant Director.

 __________________________ 
MOSLEY v. USPS 2

Before NEWMAN, BRYSON, and O’MALLEY, Circuit Judges. 

PER CURIAM. 

DECISION

Frederick S. Mosley appeals the order of the Merit 

System Protection Board affirming the decision of the 

United States Postal Service to remove him from federal 

employment. We affirm.

BACKGROUND

A Postal Service employee since 1986, Mr. Mosley had 

been detailed to the Panama City, Florida, North Side 

Station as a supervisor for customer service since May 

2010. His employment was terminated following a December 2010 incident in which the Postal Service discovered that Mr. Mosley had obtained and used a Publix gift 

card, worth $25, that had been stored as undeliverable 

accountable mail. The gift card had been left inside a 

greeting card, which was placed on top of other greeting 

cards in a padlocked cart. The other greeting cards 

contained an Applebee’s gift card and a total of $55 in 

cash, none of which was taken. On January 26, 2011, a

fellow Postal Service employee, preparing to send the 

undeliverable mail to an Atlanta office, opened the greeting card and noticed that the gift card was missing. The 

key to the padlocked cart containing the undeliverable 

accountable mail was widely known to be located in an 

unlocked drawer in the office, which was accessible to 

many Postal Service employees. The coworker reported 

the lost gift card to Mr. Mosley, who told her to report the 

incident to Mr. Mosley’s immediate supervisor. 

The Postal Service’s Office of Inspector General 

(“OIG”) commenced an investigation into the gift card’s 
3 MOSLEY v. USPS

whereabouts. Using the Publix gift card receipt and a 

surveillance videotape, an OIG investigator determined 

that Mr. Mosley had cashed the gift card. When questioned, Mr. Mosley claimed the card had been left on the 

supervisor’s desk, where he sat. He said that he assumed 

the gift card was a gift from his subordinates. According 

to the OIG investigator, Mr. Mosley initially claimed that 

the gift card was inside a greeting card, and a sticky note 

with his name was attached to it. Later in the same 

interview, however, Mr. Mosley told investigators that he 

found the greeting card, with the gift card inside, in a 

white envelope with his name written in blue ink. When 

confronted with the inconsistency in his statements, Mr. 

Mosley denied that he had ever told the investigators that 

the gift card was attached to a sticky note.

Mr. Mosley stated further that he displayed the greeting card on the supervisor’s desk, along with another 

greeting card containing a gift card from Home Depot that 

he had received from coworkers. Mr. Mosley denied 

knowing the Publix gift card’s value before he cashed it. 

(The dollar amount was not printed on the card.) He also 

stated that he had discussed the gift card with a fellow

supervisor who was temporarily stationed at the Panama 

City facility, and he claimed that she had told him to keep 

the gift card because it had his name on it. 

The Postal Service issued a notice of proposed removal based on charges that Mr. Mosley had engaged in 

improper conduct and had made false statements to 

investigators in the course of the investigation. The latter 

charge contained three specifications: (1) falsely stating 

that he had found the gift card on his desk; (2) falsely 

stating that he had discussed whether to keep the card 

with the temporary supervisor; and (3) falsely stating that

the coworker who discovered that the gift card was miss-
MOSLEY v. USPS 4

ing had not told him that the gift card had been stored in 

the undeliverable accountable mail. The Postmaster

subsequently issued a decision sustaining both charges 

and removing Mr. Mosley from his position. Mr. Mosley 

later pleaded no contest to a charge of petit theft of the 

gift card and was sentenced to six months’ probation and 

a fine. He appealed the Postmaster’s decision to the 

Board.

During a hearing before a Board administrative 

judge, the OIG investigator testified about Mr. Mosley’s 

inconsistent statements with respect to how he found the 

gift card. The temporary supervisor who shared the 

supervisor’s desk with Mr. Mosley also testified that she 

had not seen the Publix gift card displayed on the desk 

but that she recalled seeing the Home Depot gift card. 

The station manager at the office also testified that he 

never saw the card displayed on the supervisor’s desk.

The administrative judge found the testimony of the 

OIG investigator, the station manager, and the temporary 

supervisor to be credible and found that there was no 

evidence any Postal Service employee had a bias against 

Mr. Mosley or any reason to trick him into using the gift 

card. Moreover, the administrative judge found that even 

if Mr. Mosley had received the gift card from subordinates, his acceptance of the card was improper because it 

exceeded $10 in value and thus he could not accept it 

under Postal Service ethics rules. Although the card’s

value was not printed on it, the administrative judge 

stated that it was Mr. Mosley’s responsibility to determine the value of any gift before accepting it. The administrative judge also found that Mr. Mosley’s explanation 

for how he acquired the gift card was not credible, and 

that his demeanor during his testimony was evasive. The 

administrative judge concluded that Mr. Mosley had 
5 MOSLEY v. USPS

made false statements with the intent to deceive investigators and the Postal Service. Therefore, the administrative judge sustained the charge of improper conduct and 

the first two false statement specifications. However, the 

administrative judge found the evidence insufficient to 

prove the third specification, charging Mr. Mosley with 

making a false statement when he denied being told that 

the gift card had been in the undeliverable accountable 

mail.

The administrative judge further held that removal 

was a permissible sanction because Mr. Mosley’s false 

statements implicated his duties as a supervisor and had 

an adverse impact on the Postal Service’s mission. He

found that Mr. Mosley had made false statements concerning how he had acquired property that had been 

entrusted to the Postal Service’s care, and that this misconduct threatened the integrity of the mail system. The 

administrative judge also found that Mr. Mosley’s offense 

was serious, that the Postal Service had lost trust in him 

due to his false statements, and that he displayed no 

remorse. On Mr. Mosley’s petition for review, the full 

Board noted that the Board had “long viewed any misconduct involving interference with the mail as going directly 

to the heart of the Postal Service’s mission,” and that 

there was no basis to disturb the administrative judge’s 

finding that the penalty of removal was within the tolerable limits of reasonableness. Mr. Mosley now appeals to 

this court.

DISCUSSION

Mr. Mosley first challenges the sufficiency of the 

Postal Service’s evidence against him. In cases in which 

the petitioner argues that the evidence on which the 

Board relied was insufficient, we are required to uphold 
MOSLEY v. USPS 6

the Board’s decision if it is supported by “substantial 

evidence,” i.e., the amount of evidence that a reasonable 

person “‘might accept as adequate to support a conclusion.’” Haebe v. Dep’t of Justice, 288 F.3d 1288, 1298 

(Fed. Cir. 2002), quoting Brewer v. United States Postal 

Serv., 647 F.2d 1093, 1096 (Ct. Cl. 1981); see 5 U.S.C. § 

7703(c)(3). 

Applying that standard, we hold that substantial evidence supports the Board’s decision. First, Mr. Mosley 

was discovered to have possessed and used the gift card. 

Second, the administrative judge found that his explanation of how he obtained the gift card was not credible. 

Third, the OIG investigator testified that Mr. Mosley had 

changed his story concerning how he acquired the gift 

card, and the Board credited that testimony. The Board 

also credited the testimony of the temporary supervisor 

and the station manager, which contradicted Mr. Mosley’s 

claim that he displayed a greeting card that supposedly 

contained the Publix gift card, or that he was assured 

that he could keep the gift card because it had his name 

on it. Credibility judgments are entrusted to the Board’s 

discretion. Haebe, 288 F.3d at 1298-1302; Jackson v. 

Veterans Admin., 768 F.2d 1325, 1332 (Fed. Cir. 1985). 

The administrative judge’s credibility findings were 

sufficient to sustain both charges, especially because Mr. 

Mosley failed to produce any witness who recalled seeing

the card displayed on the supervisor’s desk. In the alternative, the evidence supports the administrative judge’s 

finding that, even if Mr. Mosley did not personally take

the gift card from the undeliverable accountable mail, he 

at least received a gift in an amount exceeding $10 without ascertaining its value, and then made false statements to investigators regarding how he had obtained an 

item from the mail that had been entrusted to the Postal 

Service. 
7 MOSLEY v. USPS

Before this court, Mr. Mosley repeats the same version of events that the administrative judge found not to 

be credible. He argues that the employee in charge of the 

undeliverable accountable mail was responsible for keeping track of the gift card on a daily basis but did not 

discover that it was missing until January 26. Because 

the gift card was cashed on January 8, Mr. Mosley argues 

that he was accused of wrongdoing to conceal the fact that 

the Postal Service lost track of the gift card for at least 18

days (and, by his account, since the December holidays). 

His accusations, however, fail to address how he obtained 

the gift card in the first place, and in particular why any 

employee would have taken it from the undeliverable

accountable mail and then presented it to him as a holiday gift. 

Mr. Mosley also states that the OIG investigators took 

no notes during his interview, and he denies changing his 

story regarding whether the gift card was in an envelope 

or attached to a sticky note. The administrative judge

credited the testifying OIG investigator’s account of the 

interview, however, and Mr. Mosley does not explain why 

the OIG would falsely or mistakenly claim he had 

changed his story. Importantly, the investigators confronted Mr. Mosley with the inconsistency in his statements as soon as he made them. The investigators’ 

memory was therefore fresh, and their reaction presumably well founded.

Mr. Mosley also notes that the undeliverable accountable mail included $55 in cash that was not stolen. He 

asserts that he would not have stolen the gift card but left 

the currency, which would have been untraceable. However, the Publix gift card was at the top of the pile in the 

cart that stored the undeliverable accountable mail. The

other valuable items were contained within separate gift 
MOSLEY v. USPS 8

cards. It is reasonable to suppose that someone taking 

the Publix card may not have looked inside the other 

cards, or might have feared that two missing items would 

be more readily noticed. And even if Mr. Mosley simply 

found the gift card on his desk, he does not explain why 

he was justified in accepting such a gift under the Postal 

Service’s ethics rules. In sum, Mr. Mosley’s contentions 

as to the flaws in the case against him cannot overcome 

the Board’s credibility determinations, the undisputed

fact that he possessed and used the card, and his inability 

to offer evidence tending to exonerate him. 

Mr. Mosley also argues that removal is too harsh a 

penalty for his offenses. We have consistently held that 

determining the appropriate penalty for an employee’s 

misconduct “‘is a matter committed primarily to the sound

discretion of the employing agency.’” Beard v. Gen. Servs. 

Admin., 801 F.2d 1318, 1322 (Fed. Cir. 1986), quoting 

Hunt v. Dep’t of Health and Human Servs., 758 F.2d 608, 

611 (Fed. Cir. 1985). We reverse a decision of the Board 

upholding an agency's penalty decision only if the penalty 

“exceeds the range of permissible punishment or is ‘so 

harsh and unconscionably disproportionate to the offense 

that it amounts to an abuse of discretion.’” Gonzales v. 

Def. Logistics Agency, 772 F.2d 887, 889 (Fed. Cir. 1985),

quoting Villela v. Dep't of the Air Force, 727 F.2d 1574, 

1576 (Fed. Cir. 1984). Mr. Mosley has not satisfied that 

exacting standard in this case.

Mr. Mosley points out that the gift card had a value of 

only $25, that he had served for more than 25 years in the 

Postal Service with a largely unblemished record, and 

that he is a veteran. Mr. Mosley cannot benefit from the 

small value of the card, however, because he admits that 

he did not know the card’s value until he used it in January. The administrative judge noted the length of Mr. 
9 MOSLEY v. USPS

Mosley’s career in the Postal Service but determined that 

the threat his conduct posed to the integrity of the mail, 

along with his lack of remorse and the Postal Service’s 

loss of trust in him, justified removal. Under these circumstances, we conclude that the Board did not abuse its 

discretion in finding that this misconduct reasonably 

warranted separation.

No costs.

AFFIRMED