An Inver Grove Heights woman allegedly stole over 500 pieces of mail from mailboxes, according to charges filed Friday, and was busted after police confronted her in a vehicle filled with stolen packages and letters.

A little after midnight on Thursday, an officer with Inver Grove Heights police pulled over the vehicle of the suspect, 34-year-old Kanesha Renae Anderson, for having a broken headlight, according to a police department news release. The officer saw a “large amount of mail” inside Anderson’s vehicle.

Upon questioning, Anderson admitted to stealing the mail from nearby mailboxes and told police she didn’t intend to give it back, according to charges filed Friday in Dakota County District Court.

Anderson was charged with two counts of mail theft. Attorney information for Anderson was not available as of Friday afternoon.

Officers sorted through the recovered mail, found over 500 stolen pieces, and counted 161 people who had their mail stolen. The mail was repackaged and transported to a post office to be re-sent to its owners, and police will notify the victims who were impacted, the department said.

The department urged residents near the intersection of 78th Street East and Concord Boulevard to check with the post office if they have not received expected mail, as they may have had mail stolen.

Anderson was arrested and remained in Dakota County jail on Thursday afternoon.

He did not return a message on Friday.

A spokeswoman for the city declined to comment on the case, but Mayor Roger Reinert said in a campaign interview before his election that the suit had the potential to bankrupt the city.

The businesses had alleged the city violated its own code for years by giving discounts to some commercial and multifamily properties while failing to charge others. For example, until 2021, the city gave steep discounts to waterfront properties, which amounted to more than $1 million annually, or 20% of its stormwater utility budget. Duluth collected about $5.2 million in stormwater fees in 2020, and businesses paid nearly half of that, the lawsuit says, at a rate higher than those in comparable cities.

More than 1,500 properties were billed at commercial rates in 2020, according to court documents, a number that also includes discounted properties.

In court filings, attorneys for the city said it had begun reviewing and fixing its billing practices long before the 2021 lawsuit was filed, a process that was completed this year and included remeasuring the impervious surfaces of thousands of properties. That process did find some properties weren’t correctly charged, some because the city wasn’t aware of changes to amounts of impervious surfaces.

A trial had been scheduled for February. It is unclear whether an appeal will be filed.