A former bookkeeper for a Bethlehem, Pa., insurance company recently was sentenced to up to 32 months in state prison for taking nearly $400,000 from her employer by forging 246 checks over seven years.

Northampton County, Pa., Judge Leonard Zito sentenced Jacqueline Anderson, 49, of Salisbury Township, Pa., to between 16 months and 32 months in prison after she pleaded guilty in July 2009 to theft by deception and tampering with records, according to the Northampton County News. The judge also ordered Anderson to pay $301,430 in restitution and to serve four years of probation.

Her employer, Woodring-Roberts Corp., an independent insurance agency, first identified possible theft in July 2007 and reported it to Bethlehem police five months later.

Anderson, a 27-year employee, blamed her thefts on an ownership change and a reduction in her salary, the newspaper reported.

To avoid detection in the company’s accounting system, Anderson typed out checks, made payable to herself and her husband or for cash, according to the newspaper, citing case records. She also admitted to altering bank statements by hand and destroying returned checks.

She told police that her husband Michael was not aware of the thefts, which included her writing about 246 fraudulent checks between 2000 and 2007, with 74 of them being written in 2002, the newspaper said. She used the company president’s signature stamp to endorse the checks, which totaled $381,257, the report said.