Long Beach police have arrested a woman who is accused of stealing security deposits from people looking for an apartment, more than two years after allegations first surfaced.<\/p>\n
Anne Bergstedt, 40, was behind bars as of Monday afternoon after being charged with stealing nearly $50,000 from more than a dozen of would-be tenants for years.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Bergstedt was hoarding dozens of deposits of $1,500 to $4,000 paid by people who responded to her fake apartment listings, the Los Angeles County District Attorney\u2019s Office said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
When the renter sent money to secure the apartment, Bergsted would cut off communication and keep the money, prosecutors alleged.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Makayla Sanger, one of the alleged victims, said Monday that she was excited to hear that Bergstedt had finally been arrested.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Sanger and her partner had quit their jobs and packed up to move to Long Beach. They said they paid Bergstead a security deposit, but the apartment never materialized.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
In an effort to stall, Sanger said, Bergstedt even told the couple that she had to be hospitalized for cancer, a claim that prosecutors doubted.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe texts did not go through. My number had been blocked,\u201d Sanger said, explaining that Bergstedt eventually cut off communication altogether.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Sanger and her partner ended up getting their money back but had to stay in Texas.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Marcia Martinez, another alleged victim, said she lost nearly $4,000 in December 2024 when she scraped together a deposit on a Long Beach loft that Bergstedt was renting but never had the right to sublease out.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was an emotional roller coaster,” Martinez said. \u201cBelieve me. I could break down and cry right now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Many of the people who claimed to have lost money took to social media, including Reddit, and even started their own website, documenting their allegations against Bergstedt.<\/p>\n
NBC Los Angeles tried several times in 2024 and this year to contact Bergstedt, using phone numbers she gave renters. They were all disconnected.<\/p>\n
Court documents indicated a judge issued an arrest warrant based on the accounts of 14 separate victims, resulting in 15 charges, including grand theft and obtaining money by false pretenses.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The documents said one alleged victim was burned twice.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Both Sanger and Martinez said they haven\u2019t been contacted about being part of the case.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe entire time she was just lying. It was messed up across the board,\u201d Sanger said, adding she\u2019s happy justice is being served.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Bergstedt was also known as the Long Beach woman who fought her landlord to keep her pet pig inside her Long Beach apartment,\u00a0claiming it was her service animal.<\/p>\n
Bergstedt\u2019s bail was lowered to $150,000.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Her next court appearance was set for Dec. 3.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Long Beach police have arrested a woman who is accused of stealing security deposits from people looking for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":77660,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[131,133,132],"class_list":["post-77659","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-long-beach","tag-long-beach","tag-long-beach-headlines","tag-long-beach-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77659","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77659"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77659\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}