Man who collected Nevada jobless benefits from jail pleads guilty to theft
A man who collected unemployment benefits from inside a jail cell has pleaded guilty to theft, the Nevada attorney general's office said.
Jesse Michael Whitlock, 38, pleaded guilty to a felony theft charge for fraudulently collecting unemployment insurance benefits while incarcerated, the state attorney general's office said in a news release. Whitlock, originally from Nevada, was locked up at the Henderson detention center in 2010 on a warrant out of Ohio for DUI and traffic violations.
Whitlock was eventually transferred to the Ohio correctional system in 2011, and he continued to collect Nevada jobless benefits during his incarceration there, a state attorney general's office spokeswoman Monica Moazez said.
"Convicts seeking to receive unemployment benefits while behind bars will not succeed in their attempts to defraud the state and its taxpayers," Nevada Attorney General Adam Paul Laxalt said in the release.
The attorney general's office said Whitlock collected jobless benefits with the help of Nedine Renee Christunas, a codefendant in the case. According to the attorney general's office, Christunas filed fraudulent claims for unemployment insurance benefits on Whitlock's behalf while he was incarcerated.
As part of his plea deal, Whitlock agreed to pay back all of the more than $13,000 he received, the Attorney General's office said. Whitlock is slated to be sentenced in June in the Eighth Judicial District Court. An arrest warrant for Christunas, who remains at large, has been issued, the release said.
It is unclear how Whitlock was initially granted the benefits while he was incarcerated.
This is not the first case of a Nevada inmate receiving jobless benefits while behind bars. According to the state attorney general's office, Joshua Jones, a 23-year-old inmate from Las Vegas, drew unemployment for several months in 2013, and Kyle Gabelman, a 32-year-old inmate from Sparks, collected unemployment for most of 2012.
Contact Christian Bertolaccini at cbertolaccini@reviewjournal.com and 702-383-0381. Find him on Twitter: @bertolaccinic
