A former insurance adjuster for Nationwide Insurance Co. will spend 82 days in jail and will pay restitution for stealing from his employer.

Walter Lewis, 49, of Laurel, Md., was sentenced to jail and ordered to pay more than $15,000 in the Circuit Court for Howard County on a charge of felony theft, according to the Maryland Attorney General’s Office.

Lewis, was accused of stealing $15,203 from Nationwide from April 5, 2005, to August 2006, by writing himself and a friend a series of checks from the insurer’s bank account. Lewis concealed the fraudulent activity by linking the checks with a dormant, but actual, insurance claim, according to officials.

The scheme was discovered following an investigation by the Maryland Insurance Administration’s Insurance Fraud Division and the attorney general’s office.