NORFOLK, Va. — Author's note: The video above is on file from June 2021, and is about one of the other co-conspirators in this fraud case.
A Norfolk man will spend 57 more months in prison after being convicted of collecting pandemic unemployment benefits fraudulently.
The Department of Justice said Michael Anthony White, 39, was part of a group that used personal information from 31 other inmates to collect the money.
He was in the Lawrenceville Correctional Center in May 2020 when he started collecting identifications of other people, and feeding them to co-conspirators Mary Landon Benton, 38, and Angelica Cartwright-Powers, the DOJ said. An inmate at the Augusta Correctional Center (Michael Lee Lewis, Jr.) worked with them, too.
The collaboration lead to successful claims that funneled more than $330,000 to them.
They collected at least $436,834, but the Virginia Employment Commission (VEC) reclaimed some of the money after discovering the fraud.
Benton was sentenced to 78 months in jail, and Lewis was sentenced to 115 months in jail.
Cartwright-Powers has pleaded guilty to her part in the scheme but hasn't been sentenced yet.