What's the penalty for opening someone else's mail?

Question

My bro-in-law is opening my mail & bank statements. We live in the same house. Can I do anything legally to make him stop? Each time, he says he did it accidently, but it keeps happening.

Answer 1

The question is really, if you filed charges would you have inter-familial problems and find yourself on the street?  Consider asking if you can have another mailbox put out for you, next to theirs.  Or get a P.O. box.

But yeah, you could file charges and the like.  Unless he's like your guardian, he doesn't have a right to open your mail.

Answer 2

Once the mail's out of the mailbox, it's your word against the other person's.  If you live in the same house and he gets mail there, he has every right to go to the mailbox and no one is going to stop and check to see whose mail he's got.

Get yourself a PO box if it's that big a deal.

Stealing someone else's mail from their mailbox, that you have no right to access, is a federal offense investigated and prosecuted by the Postal Inspection Service.  Claims of people in the same household opening someone else's mail are considered domestic disputes, and the feds won't get involved.  The cops probably won't either.

Answer 3

Its tuff you'd have to catch him doing it and tape him doing it.  

then file a police report.  Its a federal crime and he will be prosecuted