FOUR ACCUSED OF MORTGAGE SCAM DETECTIVES SAY WOULD-BE INVESTORS LOST $380,000 IN VALLEY AND LANCASTER.

Byline: Charles F. Bostwick Staff Writer

LANCASTER - Two Antelope Valley mortgage company workers, as well as a minister and a San Bernardino homeowner, have been arrested on suspicion of embezzling a total of $380,000 from 24 people in the Antelope and San Fernando valleys.

Detectives said the central figure is Carletta ``CeCe'' McCray, 41, of Lancaster, accused of embezzling money from clients including two different sets of investors who thought they were buying land at the Antelope Valley Mall for a restaurant and a hotel.

``It was a long-term Ponzi scheme. She was repaying debts with other people's money. It finally caught up in April,'' said Detective Bob Campbell of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.

McCray is accused of embezzling the money from clients in 2003 and early this year while working in three offices: MRE Lending and Interstate Mortgage Services in Lancaster, and WMC Financial in the San Fernando Valley.

Also arrested was Interstate Mortgage Services manager Robert Pulido, 43; Ron Bible, 54, accused of using $60,000 from McCray's clients to buy his San Bernardino home; and Regina Peel, 42, a traveling evangelist accused of depositing money from McCray's clients into her bank accounts and using it to pay off a second mortgage on her own home that was in foreclosure.

Campbell said three couples gave McCray $69,500 toward buying land at the Antelope Valley Mall for a restaurant, then found out the land had never been purchased.

``They couldn't get their money back,'' Campbell said. ``There was never an escrow (account) opened.''

Of the money, $60,000 went toward buying a home for Bible and $9,500 to pay off another loan, Campbell said.

He said five other Lancaster investors gave McCray $7,300 to appraise land at the mall for a purported hotel, but the check was instead used to pay off Peel's second mortgage on her home, Campbell said.

Peel's bank accounts - including one in the name of her If My People Ministries - took in approximately $80,000 in stolen funds, Campbell said.

More than $100,000 went through a bank account of Interstate Mortgage Services, where McCray worked from August 2003 until April, Campbell said.

Pulido, the Interstate Mortgage Services manager, has been cooperative and has made partial restitution, according to Campbell, who said an investigation began in June.

McCray began victimizing clients in early 2003 when she worked at WMC Financial in the San Fernando Valley, Campbell said. She then worked for about six months out of an office called MRE Lending in downtown Lancaster.

Some of the victims were acquaintances from three different churches that McCray and Peel attended, Campbell said.

Fraud detectives said con artists and other financial-fraud perpetrators often find targets at churches.

``We estimate about 75 percent of the time our crooks ... meet their victims in a church environment,'' Campbell said.

McCray, arrested Saturday and jailed in lieu of $480,000 bail, is charged with 15 counts of grand theft and seven counts of money laundering. Peel, arrested Sunday and held in lieu of $250,000 bail, is charged with seven counts of grand theft and four counts of money laundering.

Pulido, who surrendered Monday at the Lancaster sheriff's station and was held in lieu of $370,000 bail, was charged with 11 counts of grand theft and three counts of money laundering.

Bible, charged with two counts of grand theft, was arrested Saturday by San Bernardino police and was released on $60,000 bail.

Charles F. Bostwick, [phone]

chuck.bostwick(at)dailynews.com