A U.S. Postal Service employee who stabbed a supervisor in the head at a Carmel Mountain Ranch mail facility has been convicted of assault on a federal employee.
Prosecutors say Edwin Cuadrado Jr. attacked the victim on Aug. 25 in the parking lot of a USPS mail processing and distribution facility on Rancho Carmel Drive.
A San Diego federal jury returned its verdict on Friday afternoon, finding Cuadrado guilty of assault on a federal employee. Jurors were also asked to weigh whether Cuadrado might be not guilty by reason of insanity, but did not find he was legally insane at the time of the stabbing.
According to the prosecution’s trial brief, the stabbing arose from an earlier altercation between Cuadrado and a USPS supervisor at a gas station.
Cuadrado had parked his USPS tractor trailer at the gas station and the supervisor told him that USPS employees were not allowed to do that, according to court documents. Cuadrado then threw something at the supervisor’s car and pushed him, prosecutors said.
That supervisor and two others confronted Cuadrado a short time later at the mail facility and planned to notify him that he was being placed on leave.
When Cuadrado arrived, he pushed the supervisor from the earlier altercation again, then pulled out a knife, according to prosecutors.
The three supervisors tried to flee, but Cuadrado stabbed one of them multiple times in the head. The victim was hospitalized and treated for a laceration.
Prosecutors say Cuadrado and the supervisor he stabbed “had no prior altercations and did not work directly together.” Cuadrado left the scene after the stabbing and was arrested five days later.
City News Service contributed to this article.
