A Florida couple who allegedly moved into a 7,500-square foot mansion and even wrote about it on Facebook faces charges of grand theft, forgery and unlawful filing after authorities said they had been illegally squatting in the home for months.
Justin, 24, and Jenna, 23, Dean allegedly set up residence in the Keystone Heights, Florida, home -- the centerpiece of a 240-acre estate -- in September, claiming they purchased a deed for the foreclosed home at a discount.“This is the house we just bought. We have a lot of work to do, it’ll take some time but Rome wasn’t built overnight,” Jenna Dean posted on her Facebook page.
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Clay County, Florida, authorities said the couple did actually do some work on the home.
“Some locks have been changed and some ‘no trespassing’ signs have been put up,” Clay County Police Detective Steve Dugger said at a news conference this week.
The Deans’ alleged house of cards began to collapse when a couple from Ohio actually bought the house for $1.1 million.
“They put a down payment on it [and] that’s when the false deed was found,” Dugger said.
“The Quit Claim Deed that was found was fraudulent. It was made up from pieces of other deeds,” he said. “The signatures on the correct deed were used on the fraudulent deed.”
The Deans were arrested Monday and released on bail.
The couple had no comment when reached by ABC News. VIDEO
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