Date uploaded: 2021-06-30 22:03:02

A year after the Justice Department allowed her to serve her sentence at home because of the coronavirus pandemic, Gwen Levi was re-arrested for violating the terms of her home confinement. Levi attended a computer class in Baltimore four days earlier, believing she had been approved to do so. Officials at her halfway house pinged her ankle monitor and called her several times after realizing she wasn't home. But Levi had turned her phone off while in class, and her ankle monitor didn't go off, her attorney said. She was unreachable for several hours. A Bureau of Prison report described the incident as an "escape." Levi is now at a Washington, D.C. jail, waiting to be transferred to a federal facility, where she will presumably serve the remaining four years of her sentence. She's 76. "She was shocked, scared and confused," her attorney, Sapna Mirchandani said. "What really bothers me is that when I spoke to her case manager, they don't contend that she was not where she said she was." Levi is among the 24,000 nonviolent federal prisoners who, under the Trump administration, were allowed to serve their sentence at home to slow the spread of COVID-19 inside prison walls. But a Justice Department memo issued in the final days of the administration says inmates whose sentences will extend beyond the pandemic must be brought back to prison. The Biden administration has yet to take action despite calls from advocates to rescind the memo. Photos and video by Jessica Koscielniak. Story by Kristine Phillips.