Two men have pleaded guilty in federal court to fraudulently receiving COVID-19 unemployment benefits while they were incarcerated in Mississippi. 

Kev’Veonta Short and Travis Thorn were convicted last week in separate cases in the Southern District of Mississippi of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. They are expected to be sentenced in the coming months. The charge carries a maximum 20-year sentence and a $250,000 fine. 

The unemployment insurance benefits were federally subsidized through the CARES Act during the pandemic. Incarcerated people were not eligible to receive the money. 

Short, 32, of Natchez, pleaded guilty Friday to conspiracy to commit wire fraud for submitting false unemployment insurance claims while imprisoned at the South Mississippi Correctional Institution. Short is scheduled for sentencing in July.

Between May and July 2020, Short submitted an application through the Mississippi Department of Employment Security, according to court records. 

Within a span of two weeks that May, a dozen incarcerated people in the state, including Short, submitted unemployment benefit applications, the indictment states. 

After receiving the money, Short and other members of the conspiracy transferred it to other prisoners using “Green Dot” reloadable debit cards, Way2Go Cards and CashApp, according to court records. 

In 2020, Short was serving time for cocaine possession and aggravated assault, according to the Mississippi Department of Corrections. He was discharged in 2022.  

He was ordered held in federal custody pending trial in September 2025 for a number of reasons, including prior criminal history for violent offenses and failure to appear at past municipal court appearances, according to court records. 

Short’s two accomplices in the COVID fraud scheme, Adrian Wilson and Aaron Sanders, pleaded guilty to the same charge in February. Both men are still incarcerated and state prison records list their unit as “Federal court order.” Wilson is set to be sentenced in June.

Another co-defendant, Vicki Page, is set to go to trial in April. She is accused of receiving over $7,000 of fraudulently obtained unemployment benefits and transferring them to Sanders through CashApp, according to court records. 

On Wednesday, Thorn, 45, of Monroe, Louisiana, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud for working with others to fraudulently obtain about $13,500 in unemployment benefits while he was in a Mississippi prison. He is expected to be sentenced in July. 

Between May and September 2020, he worked with an unnamed, unindicted co-conspirator and others in Harrison County to fill out an application for benefits for him with the Mississippi Department of Employment Security, according to court records. Thorn gave his personal information to another person to apply for the benefits, and the co-conspirator provided her address in Gulfport as the residence on Thorn’s application. 

Through a debit card, he received about $3,400 in state unemployment benefits and about $10,200 in federal unemployment compensation, according to the indictment. Then the co-conspirator used some of the benefit money to make purchases and transferred some of it to Thorn through his commissary fund. 

In 2020, Thorn was serving time for burglary and aggravated assault, according to MDOC. He was released on probation in March 2025 and was being supervised by federal officials in Louisiana. 

The FBI and Mississippi State Auditor’s Office investigated the case involving Short and the other SMCI prisoners. The auditor’s office, the U.S. Department of Labor and the Office of the Inspector General handled the investigation of Thorn.

Auditor Shad White launched Operation Payback in May 2024 to investigate unemployment compensation during the pandemic. It has resulted in another state prisoner’s conviction for fraud. 

“We will continue to find as many of these fraudsters as possible and hold them accountable for their crimes,” White said in a February statement announcing a 15-year sentence and restitution for Kenjarell Thomas, who received benefits while incarcerated.