VENTURA, California – District Attorney Gregory D. Totten announced today that Kern County resident Hayser Scarlett Lopez (DOB 10/17/68) has pled guilty to felony charges of perjury and recording a false document. Lopez and Kern County residents Gina Marie Hernandez (DOB 9/24/77) and Peggy Ann Soto (DOB 7/9/59), were arrested in October 2014 as the result of an investigation conducted by the District Attorney’s Real Estate Fraud Unit.

The defendants are accused of planning and executing a scheme to use an unsuspecting victim’s Oxnard residence as collateral for Lopez’s bail in an unrelated Kern County case. Hernandez recruited Soto, who assumed the victim’s identity. Soto then executed a fraudulent power of attorney and impersonated the victim while testifying in a bail hearing in Kern Superior Court. After the victim’s residence was fraudulently used to secure Lopez’s bail bond and release from custody, Lopez fled the country. As a result, the bondsman who posted Lopez’s bail foreclosed on the victim’s residence, which was nearly lost during foreclosure proceedings. Lopez eventually returned to the United States.

Lopez is expected to be sentenced to two years in state prison when she is sentenced on February 27, 2015, in courtroom 14 at 1:30 p.m. Soto and Hernandez are due in court on March 9, 2015, for an early disposition conference in courtroom 12 at 1:30 p.m.