SIOUX CITY — A Sioux City woman has pleaded guilty of scamming a mother out of nearly $12,000 by faking a child welfare investigation.
Anna Perez-Joaquin, 40, entered her plea Thursday to one count of first-degree theft as a habitual offender. Sentencing was scheduled for May 22 in Woodbury County District Court.
Perez-Joaquin
As part of a plea agreement, charges of extortion and commission of a specified unlawful activity influenced enterprise will be dismissed. Her sentence was not spelled out in the plea agreement, and it will be up to a judge to decide whether to impose a 15-year prison sentence.
The scheme began on Aug. 26, 2021, when Perez-Joaquin convinced the mother she and her children were the subject of an Iowa Department of Human Services investigation and tricked the mother into granting temporary custody of the kids to her. Perez-Joaquin had fake social workers visit the woman's home and send fake emails to her. Perez-Joaquin then used a fraudulent lawyer profile to get the mother to pay her $400 a month in child support and give Perez-Joaquin her child tax credit check and other monthly benefits the children received.
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During a four-month period, Perez-Joaquin accepted at least 16 cash payments and bank transfers totaling approximately $11,874 from the mother.
Perez-Joaquin had plans to take the children to Mexico, court documents said.
Scene photos. Two people were killed and at least a dozen others were injured in a shooting that broke out inside a private club Sept. 26, 2020, at 501 W. Fourth St. in Waterloo, Iowa.
Counties where the most people work from home in Iowa
Counties where the most people work from home in Iowa
When the COVID-19 pandemic struck in early 2020, every task that could adapt to a remote activity did—fitness classes, happy hours, even doctor's visits—and, crucially, the workday.
But plenty stayed in-person, partly depending on the task or job. A Pew Research Center survey conducted in October 2020 found that 71% of people who could do their jobs remotely were working remotely. Still, lower-income workers were less likely to be doing so, regardless of what their job duties were.
Geography mattered, too: Cities were more likely to have remote-friendly jobs, according to an OECD analysis, but many rural areas sought to attract workers who could now work from anywhere.
The shift to remote work didn't completely end once offices reopened for in-person work: According to another survey from Pew Research Center, 59% of respondents were still working remotely in 2022.
ClickUp used Census Bureau data from the 2021 American Community Survey to rank the counties in Iowa with the largest percentage of people working from home at least some of the time.
Of course, the reason many workers are choosing to telework is different in 2023 than it was in March 2020. In the same 2022 Pew Research Center survey, respondents said working from home made it easier to balance their personal lives with work and meet deadlines. Fewer remote workers said they were concerned about being exposed to COVID-19 than in 2020.
Furthermore, a 2022 survey conducted by McKinsey & Company found that of the professionals surveyed who had the opportunity to work from home, 87% took advantage of it. A flexible working arrangement was even cited as the third-most powerful motivator to look for a new job.
So what is the state of remote work across the country? Nearly 18% of Americans who responded to the 2021 Census Bureau American Community Survey said they worked from home at least some during the previous week. That's 27.6 million people—roughly triple the 9 million who said they worked from home in 2019.
Of course, the amount of remote workers varies from state to state: Nearly half of District of Columbia professionals worked remotely in 2021, with nearly a quarter of workers in Washington, Maryland, Colorado, and Massachusetts also logging on at home.
In this analysis, ties were broken by the number of workers in a county. Single-year American Community Survey estimates were only available for 10 out of 99 counties statewide, but were used over five-year estimates due to the extreme changes in work-from-home trends over the past few years.
Keep reading to discover where most people work from home in your state.
#10. Woodbury County
- People working from home within county: 5.2% of workers
- Total number of workers within county (age 16+): 52,487
#9. Black Hawk County
- People working from home within county: 9.1% of workers
- Total number of workers within county (age 16+): 65,833
#8. Pottawattamie County
- People working from home within county: 9.9% of workers
- Total number of workers within county (age 16+): 43,544
#7. Scott County
- People working from home within county: 12.2% of workers
- Total number of workers within county (age 16+): 83,948
#6. Dubuque County
- People working from home within county: 12.8% of workers
- Total number of workers within county (age 16+): 51,212
#5. Story County
- People working from home within county: 18.5% of workers
- Total number of workers within county (age 16+): 50,158
#4. Linn County
- People working from home within county: 18.9% of workers
- Total number of workers within county (age 16+): 115,633
#3. Johnson County
- People working from home within county: 19.4% of workers
- Total number of workers within county (age 16+): 88,727
#2. Polk County
- People working from home within county: 20.5% of workers
- Total number of workers within county (age 16+): 256,116
#1. Dallas County
- People working from home within county: 27.4% of workers
- Total number of workers within county (age 16+): 59,377
