A former employee of U.S. Postal Service Friday was sentenced to six months in jail for stealing marijuana. 

Makhya Curtis, 24, of Highland Springs, looted at least one parcel of nearly 3 pounds of illegally shipped marijuana on June 23, 2017, 

However, the package handler was caught while leaving the Sandston Mail Processing and Distribution Center with more than a kilogram of marijuana.

U.S. District Judge Robert E. Payne sentenced Curtis, who admitted using marijuana but was not involved in illegally shipping it.

The U.S. attorney’s office sought a six-month sentence. However, Curtis’ lawyer, Vaughan C. Jones, asked for home confinement instead of jail. He sought the court's permission so that she could continue to work her two jobs, care for her 5-year-old son and participate in a drug treatment program.

According to Court documents dozens of damaged parcels were recovered from the Sandston distribution center that had been removed from the mail stream, opened and searched from March to June of 2017. 

The damaged packages were then placed back into the mail stream, sometimes with the contents removed. 

Curtis was employed at the center as a mail handler — loading, unloading and moving bulk mail — when she learned that marijuana was being shipped through the mail.

The postal inspectors reviewed surveillance footage from security cameras after getting reports of the high number of damaged packages and found that Curtis opening some packages.

On June 23, 2017, also inspectors watching via video saw her remove several packages from bins and open them. She was seen placing the contents of at least one parcel into her personal bag and was intercepted by inspectors when she left the facility on a break.

Later, a total of 1,338.9 grams, or nearly 3 pounds, of marijuana was recovered during a search of her bag.

The U.S. Postal Inspection Service reported that in 2016, inspectors seized mail containing more than 40,000 pounds of illegal narcotics and $22.5 million in drug-trafficking proceeds.