This guy makes Newman look like a hero.
A troubled Brooklyn mailman took his depression and booze addiction out on his postal customers by failing to deliver some 40,000 pieces of mail and hoarding the massive stash in his home, car and post office locker.
Joseph Brucato, a Vietnam War vet, admitted hiding a ton of mail meant for customers in Flatbush since 2005, according to a Brooklyn federal court complaint.
It took five postal agents five hours to remove the massive stash of purloined letters from the 67-year-old’s Flatlands apartment, which he shares with his wife and child, his landlord told The Post.
“It really shocked me,” said Bruno Honovic, 72. “Our neighbor thought maybe he was moving and the post office was helping him out by lending him a truck.”
A postal supervisor became suspicious that Brucato was up to something weird when he noticed his personal car was stuffed with undelivered letters, the complaint said.
Investigators pressed Brucato about the letter cache, and he copped to hoarding more than a ton of mail — a total of 2,500 pounds — over the past decade.
The haul included priority, first-class and regular mail that had once been headed for Brooklyn businesses and residents in Flatbush, according to court papers.
Brucato, who faces up to five years in prison if convicted, blamed alcohol and depression for his bizarre hoarding habit at his arraignment in Brooklyn federal court Wednesday.
Brucato, whose scheme echoed that of “Seinfeld” mailman Newman, could not be reached for comment. He was released on his own recognizance.
Magistrate Vera Scanlon ordered him to “abstain from excessive alcohol consumption” as part of his release, according to a court document.
A Postal Service rep said officials will tackle the task of trying to deliver the stash.
Brucato was hired by the USPS in 2001. He has been suspended with pay, pending the outcome of his case.
Honovic said he had been renting his apartment for the last 30 years and that he and his family were quiet and respectful.
“We’re in a state of shock because we never saw anything,” Honovic’s wife told The Post. “They’re very nice people. They never give us any trouble.”
The Postal Service’s mantra of reliability has faced criticism over the past year.
A Long Island mailman, Patrick Paskett, 24, was arrested in March for brazenly dumping more than 1,000 pieces of mail in Dumpsters along his route to avoid the labor of delivering them.