The city’s top postal official issued a strong defense of the employee accused of negligence in a crash that led to an $11.5 million verdict.

“Our carrier was totally innocent on that,” said Vicki Gangi, officer in charge of the Monroe post office.

A federal jury in Athens decided Nov. 18, after a three-day trial, that Randy Malcom was negligent in the 2006 crash that seriously injured a woman and her unborn son. A police report at the time said Jason Conrad Murray was in the rain on Highway 11 Southwest, just south of Monroe, when his 2000 Pontiac Firebird left the road and struck a fence. Murray told the Georgia State Patrol he had to avoid a mail truck that was on the side of the road and pulled into traffic.

Stephen Lowry, an attorney from Harris Penn Lowry DelCampo in Savannah, said five police officers testified in a federal civil trial that the U.S. Postal Service employee, Randy Malcom, left the scene.

“Mr. Malcom caused the accident, saw it was devastating and subsequently left the scene, going on to finish his mail route earlier than normal on that day,” Lowry said in a statement last week.

Lowry represents Mary Bilbrey and her 3-year-old son, Anthony. Mary Bilbrey was a passenger in her Murray’s car.

A wooden post crashed through the windshield and penetrated Bilbrey’s abdomen near her uterus. She was 37 weeks pregnant, and Anthony was born in an emergency Caesarean section about an hour later at Walton Regional Medical Center.

Lowry said Bilbrey “by all accounts, should have died at the scene” and that her son will never walk, talk or eat on his own. Lowry said Bilbrey was in a coma for about five months and will suffer from her injuries for the rest of her life.

“The callousness of Mr. Malcom still amazes me,” Lowry said. “In addition to that, the Postal Service did nothing to aid law enforcement during the investigation of this accident. It was gross negligence at every level.”

But Gangi said Malcom has a solid record in more than 30 years with the Postal Service.

“Never had an accident, and that includes this one,” she said Nov. 24. “There was never any contact. It’s just a bad situation. It went bad.”

The jury deliberated for about three hours before returning a verdict. Lawyers for Bilbrey said it was the first time in the history of the Georgia Middle District for a judge to empanel an advisory jury to determine who was at fault.

The jury ruled Malcom was negligent “and that such negligence was the sole legal cause of the automobile accident involving Mary Bilbrey and Anthony Bilbrey.”

Mary Bilbrey filed a $10 million claim against the USPS, which the agency denied. In a June 3, 2009, letter to an attorney for Bilbrey, a postal service lawyer wrote that an investigation showed Murray was driving at a high rate of speed past the stopped postal truck when the Pontiac Firebird fishtailed, skidded into a ditch and ran into a fence.

The letter notes it was “raining hard” when the accident happened and a man got out of the passenger side to check on a female driver. It says the postal employee called police to report the accident and waited for troopers to arrive and investigate.

The police report indicated a man was driving the car, not a woman. The USPS lawyer suggested Bilbrey pursue a claim against Murray for driving at an unsafe speed for conditions and losing control of the vehicle.

Gangi said lawyers told Malcom not to comment on the accident.

Michael J. Moore, the U.S. attorney in Macon, said the USPS has the opportunity to appeal the verdict.

“We obviously respect the judge’s decision,” Moore said. “Certainly, because it’s pending, we can’t really comment further right now.”