LOS ANGELES – A California woman is facing criminal and civil charges in connection to a real estate scam that targeted black investors in three states, bilking hundreds of them out of $18 million, authorities said Wednesday.

Jeanetta M. Standefor of Altadena, was arrested Wednesday, a day after a federal grand jury in Los Angeles returned an 11-count indictment against her charging her with wire fraud, mail fraud and money laundering, the U.S. attorney's office said.

She was due to be arraigned later Wednesday.

Standefor and her Pasadena-based company, Accelerated Funding Group, also are charged with several violations of U.S. securities laws, according to a civil complaint filed against her and the company by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Authorities claim Standefor, 40, lured investors in California, Nevada and Georgia into investing in her company, which purported to use the funds to help homeowners in default get current on their mortgage payments.

Investors were promised their investments would grow by as much as 50 percent within a matter of days. Instead, Standefor was running a Ponzi scheme that paid off early investors with more recent investors' money, authorities said.

The scheme ended up snaring more than 600 investors between 2005 and 2007.

Standefor used more than $1.9 million of investor funds to pay for a host of personal expenses, including home renovations and her wedding and honeymoon, authorities said.

Standefor also tapped investors' funds to pay her husband, Darrell R. Dansby, $121,000 in consulting fees, authorities said.

Standefor faces a maximum of 180 years in federal prison if convicted. Her husband is not facing criminal charges but is named as a relief defendant in the SEC complaint.

A call to the public defender assigned to Standefor was not immediately returned.