TheBakersfieldCalifornian.com

A mother and daughter charged with a major scam that bilked at least 32 people out of 18 homes valued at more than $2.3 million are in jail in lieu of posting $1 million bail each, according to records in Kern County Superior Court.

The daughter, Dawn Marie Kantin, 37, came into court Monday afternoon where she grinned at a friend in the audience. She pleaded not guilty to 44 counts of conspiracy, embezzlement, theft, notary fraud and forgery.

Her mother, 69-year-old Alice Kantin, the reported owner of Desert Air Real Estate Investments, Inc. in Bakersfield, will be arraigned on the same charges Tuesday, court and jail records say. No company by that name is incorporated in California and the address listed for the company is a post office box in Rosedale, the reports filed in court say.

Victims of the reported scam, which operated in Bakersfield between August 2007 and June 2009, were financially devastated after entrusting their homes to the Kantins, according to a sworn declaration filed by Gordon Isen of the Kern County District Attorney's Real Estate Fraud Unit.

One listed victim, Priscilla Acosta of Bakersfield, said Monday, "I'm relieved" to hear about the arrests. "The ordeal we've been through because of her (Alice Kantin) still makes me cry. We lost our home to foreclosure which we didn't find out about until it was too late."

And that's what Isen's declaration said happened to distressed homeowners of 18 houses who contracted with Kantin to take over their payments but lost their home due to foreclosure. In addition, rents paid by 14 tenants with rent-to-buy agreements evaporated when they suddenly learned the homes were in foreclosure, the declaration says.

While homeowners lost their home values and tenants lost the rent they thought was going toward a home purchase, bank records show that Alice Kantin enriched herself by $290,000 in a 12-month period beginning in December 2007, investigative reports in the court file say.

Dawn Kantin falsely represented herself as a notary public in California in at least eight transactions, the reports say. Her mother was present during those transactions, the reports filed in court say.

Indeed, the daughter's application to become a notary was denied by the Secretary of State's office due to a "substantial and material misstatement or omission in the application," Isen's declaration says.

In one transaction, Dawn Kantin falsely notarized a document with the forged names of homeowners -- Dru and Cheryl Burton who had moved to Utah -- in order to place a deed of a $411,000 home at 12700 Dove Creek Drive (near Rosedale Highway and Allen Road) in the name of a tenant, Ronald Spears, a search warrant in the case says.

It appears in the search warrant that Spears remains in the home. He could not be reached for comment. Isen declined to comment beyond what is in the public reports.

Acts alleged in the conspiracy charge say that Alice Kantin arranged for homeowners to put the deeds in either her name or the name of her firm to hold onto until a renter qualified to buy a house. Any renters, meanwhile, would make payments to satisfy the monthly mortgage and those funds could eventually be used toward purchase of the home, court reports say.

Some tenants made downpayments toward purchase of the home, the reports say. In one case reported by KBAK-TV, Channel 29, Jennifer Hollet and Anthony King paid Alice Kantin $30,000 toward the purchase of a home on Lacroix Court in Campus Park.

Hollet told Channel 29 last summer that a month after they moved in, default notices began to arrive and she and King were evicted and lost their downpayment. Isen confirmed one of the charges relates to this allegation.

Isen asked for and received $1 million bail on each defendant. He also obtained an order that prevents fraudulently obtained money from being used to post bail. The defendants were arrested Friday, though the older woman was booked under the name Alice Meyer, one of five aliases listed in court files.