Newport News Woman Receives Seven-Year Sentence in COVID Unemployment Fraud

NEWPORT NEWS, Va. — Lakeia Simone Grant, also known as Lakeia Shepperd, was sentenced to 87 months in prison on May 8, 2026, for her role in a COVID-era unemployment insurance fraud scheme, the U.S. Department of Justice announced.

Grant, 40, of Newport News, pleaded guilty in the Eastern District of Virginia to charges that included wire fraud and aggravated identity theft tied to the scheme. The fraud exploited pandemic-era expansions of state and federal unemployment programs, including the CARES Act's Pandemic Unemployment Assistance and the regular state UI system that together distributed more than $800 billion nationwide between 2020 and 2022.

Federal prosecutors have pursued hundreds of similar cases targeting individuals who filed claims using stolen identities or fabricated employment records.

The sentence changes Grant's legal status from defendant to incarcerated felon effective immediately upon remand to the Bureau of Prisons. She must serve 85 percent of the term before release under federal rules, followed by three years of supervised release.

The court also ordered full restitution and asset forfeiture, though specific dollar amounts tied to her conduct were not detailed in the sentencing release.

Downstream, the Bureau of Prisons must designate a facility for Grant within weeks and begin collection on any restitution judgment. The ruling adds to the volume of pandemic fraud recoveries now flowing back to the Department of Labor and state workforce agencies, which have been reconciling overpayments since 2021.

Federal investigators and auditors retain authority to use the precedent in parallel probes; the Labor Department's Office of Inspector General has referred more than 100,000 fraud allegations to prosecutors since the emergency programs ended.

This sentencing continues a series of post-pandemic accountability actions. The Justice Department has secured convictions in multiple districts for schemes that exploited the temporary removal of work-search requirements and the introduction of new federal benefit tiers between March 2020 and September 2021.

Congress ended the enhanced federal programs in 2021, after which states began cross-checking claims against wage records and the Treasury Department's Do Not Pay system.