Man accepts plea deal, is sentenced to prison for carjacking mail truck

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Wilber Castellanos Hernandez, 33, pleads guilty and is sentenced to 2.5 years for carjacking a mail truck.
In February 2024, Hernandez threatened a postal worker, drove recklessly and caused traffic accidents.
Post-release, Hernandez faces deportation proceedings by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

SALT LAKE CITY — A man from Mexico has been sentenced to two and a half years in prison for stealing a postal truck and threatening a postal worker before fleeing in the truck.

Wilber Castellanos Hernandez, 33, pleaded guilty in April to carjacking a U.S. Postal Service truck. The court ordered him to pay almost $3,000 for the damage he caused to the postal vehicle and missing postal equipment.

In February 2024, police received a report of a man trying to open car doors near an apartment complex in Salt Lake City. The apartment building's manager and others noticed and started chasing Hernandez, who ran to a mail truck down the road and jumped in, court documents state.

Hernandez then threatened the U.S. Postal Service worker with a knife before taking the truck, police said. Hernandez drove "recklessly" through Davis County, where he was involved in several minor traffic accidents, until the mail truck was located using GPS technology and he was stopped by officers.

Hernandez nearly hit two people while fleeing in the truck, ran into a civilian truck in Centerville when police attempted to stop him, and rammed into a Centerville police vehicle after officers blocked him in on a dead-end street, police said. He was taken into custody after a 45-minute standoff.

Hernandez told police he was on drugs at the time of the incident and had a hazy memory of what occurred, a sentencing memorandum states.

Hernandez was indicted shortly after on federal charges of carjacking, mail theft and theft of government property. As part of his plea deal, the charges for mail theft and theft of government property were dropped.

He was convicted in state court of failing to stop at the command of police and aggravated assault, third-degree felonies, for the same incident. He was being held in the Salt Lake County Jail before being transferred to serve the federal prison sentence, court documents state.

Once he is released from prison, Hernandez will be remanded to the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement for deportation proceedings, according to court documents.

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