Holly Marie Jacobi, who formerly went by Holly Marie Bemis, worked as the HR manager for an Iowa manufacturing firm where she falsified payroll expenses and health care reimbursements on behalf of 10 employees. She arranged for the payroll system to wire $65,000 to bank accounts she operated.

Jacobi also received over $17,000 in fraudulent unemployment benefits from Iowa after she filed a fraudulent application for federal COVID-19 unemployment insurance benefits.

After her Iowa employer learned of Jacobi’s actions and fired her, she secured a job at a Wisconsin cheese company. After losing that job, she applied for federal unemployment benefits from Wisconsin, and kept reporting that she was unemployed from May to October 2021 even after she secured a job with a California company. Jacobi fraudulently collected more than $12,000 in federal unemployment benefits from Wisconsin.

In addition to her prison sentence, Jacobi also must serve four months’ home confinement, repay $6,000 for court-appointed attorney costs and repay her former employer as well as Iowa and Wisconsin restitution of $95,567.69.

Read the announcement from the United States Attorney for the Northern District of Iowa.