The U.S. Postal Service's former top marketing executive repeatedly used government staff — and at least two business associates he hired with sole-source contracts — to manage his personal finances and outside business interests, according to a new report.

Robert Bernstock, who resigned June 4, admitted to Office of Inspector General investigators that he had used postal resources and staff to handle his personal business while on the agency's time.

The report, released today, said his use of Postal Service employees and property to conduct personal business was improper.

The report also raises questions about Postal Service general counsel Mary Anne Gibbons' apparent failure to report Bernstock's improper use of postal staff.

Bernstock told OIG investigators that in June 2009 — about a year after Bernstock joined the Postal Service — he told Gibbons that his staff sometimes worked on his personal business, which he thought was allowed. Gibbons told him using postal staff to conduct his private business was "inappropriate."

"Gibbons physically ‘covered her ears' and was adamant that ‘she didn't want to talk about the past … do not do it,' " the report quoted Bernstock as saying. "He said that was when he first appreciated the difference between working for the government and working in the private sector."

The report said that Postal Service rules require any violations of postal law be immediately reported to the OIG, but Gibbons did not do so.

But an unnamed staffer continued working on Bernstock's outside businesses after their conversation, the report said, until the Postal Service's Law Department reminded him that was improper.

Among other findings by the OIG:

• Bernstock conducted negotiations with Costco to allow the company to sell Christmas stamps in bulk while owning $30,000 in the company's stock. Postal rules require an official owning more than $15,000 in stock in a company to recuse himself from any Postal Service dealings with that company.

• Bernstock failed to tell the Postal Service about several companies on whose boards he sat, and he used his office, computer and telephone to participate in teleconferences and meetings for several private companies on whose boards he serves.

• Bernstock tried to hire an unnamed postal staffer as a private employee to handle his personal affairs, but the agency's legal department advised against it. So Bernstock got that staffer a $10,000 annual retention bonus for the rest of his postal career, even though he admitted that staffer was not planning to leave the Postal Service.

• Between June 2008 and February 2010, one or more unnamed postal staffers sent or received 1,422 e-mails regarding Bernstock's outside businesses or from his tax accountant and financial adviser.

• An unnamed postal staffer created documents that supported an Ohio barbeque restaurant chain called City Barbeque, of which Bernstock is a co-owner. A postal staffer also e-mailed Bernstock's personal financial adviser to wire Bernstock money as a down payment to invest in the restaurant.

• Contractors Kimberly Wolfson and Lynne Alvarez, to whom Bernstock steered separate sole-source contracts in 2008, also sent one or more postal staffers e-mails with personal business documents related to City Barbeque and the convenience store chain The Pantry. Bernstock serves on the board of directors for The Pantry.

Federal Times in January and March first reported on four sole-source contracts worth nearly $5.9 million that Bernstock steered to Wolfson, Alvarez and two other business associates. The OIG found that those contracts "lacked necessary documentation" to support their sole-source nature, and said Bernstock admitted he initiated the award of noncompetitive contracts to associates he called "friends."

The report said Wolfson sent Bernstock an e-mail Nov. 3, 2008, that said she had been laid off from her firm, Thomas Weisel Partners, and was looking for a new job. Two days later, Bernstock offered to hire her as a consultant or employee and promised to "assign you to any function you would like for as long as you would like."