Jul 2, 2021 2 min read

An inmate at SCI-Greene prison who worked with his mother to illegally obtain unemployment bonus checks provided in the federal COVID-19 stimulus bill last year pleaded guilty in federal court Wednesday.

Levi Stroud, 25, of 389 Steubenville Pike, Hanover Township, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit mail fraud and was sentenced by U.S. District Judge William Stickman to serve seven months in prison, followed by a year on supervised release.

Investigators said Stroud urged his mother, Christina Marie Weigner, to file for unemployment compensation on his behalf last summer while he was jailed at the state prison near Waynesburg.

Levi was one of 33 inmates in Western Pennsylvania charged in August with illegally receiving unemployment compensation as part of the additional $600 weekly benefit provided by the federal CARES Act for people who were left jobless due to the coronavirus pandemic. Stroud had been jailed at the state prison near Waynesburg following a crime spree involving numerous thefts in Beaver and Washington counties in 2017.

Weigner told Stroud in a June 2020 phone call to the jail that she had signed him up for unemployment benefits and said he was available to work despite being jailed. She back-filed for 19 weeks of unemployment compensation, meaning he was set to receive nearly $9,300 in unemployment benefits on a state-issued debit card, investigators said. Federal investigators charged Stroud and Weigner in August.

Weigner, 48, who was living in Hanover Township at the time but has since moved to Clarksburg, W.Va., pleaded guilty June 16 to one federal charge of conspiracy to commit mail fraud. She is awaiting sentencing by Stickman on Oct. 25.