Don't blame the residents of the Belle Point neighborhood outside Apex for presuming Kevin Gleaton was a polite, dependable banker.

His secret life -- police say he was a con man -- surfaced long after he agreed in 2004 to do the neighborhood a favor and serve as treasurer of the homeowners association. Heck, nobody else in the 26-home subdivision wanted to keep track of their $50-per-home monthly dues.

In his wake, police say, Gleaton left the neighborhood's financial books in ruin and a series of tantalizing clues that would connect him to a fake mine claim, a Mercedes bought with church money and a few other suspect financial arrangements.

Gleaton, 34, amassed a fictional fortune he said included an Arizona mine worth more than $300 million. He rode around New York in a limousine, a former business associate said, and spoke of buying hotels and starting a fashion line. When he needed money to buy a used Mercedes, police say, he stole it.

Gleaton's neighbors glimpsed his other side last year, police say, after bank records indicated he pocketed about $13,500 in homeowners association dues. They responded by jump-starting the investigation that led to Gleaton's arrest in June.

Gleaton now faces possible foreclosure of his $420,000 red-brick home in Belle Point and eight felony charges, including forgery and obtaining property by false pretenses. If convicted on all charges, he could spend up to 12 years in prison.

Gleaton's lawyers, Doug Brown and Perry Mastromichalis of Raleigh, believe there are other explanations for what happened in Belle Point. They say some of the money Gleaton took from the neighborhood's account was for reimbursements. Gleaton said he occasionally paid for landscaping of the neighborhood's common entrance and picnic area out of his own pocket.

But they said they could not account for all of Gleaton's actions -- in part because they are still researching his past. Gleaton's wife, Romanda, said she can't either.

"I didn't really know what was going on," she said in a brief telephone interview.

The only person who can fully explain what happened is Gleaton, but he is not talking. Since he was freed from the Wake County jail on bail, he has moved out of Belle Point, silently rejected interview requests and declined to respond to written questions.

A trustworthy veneer

Gleaton seemed like the sort of man you could trust your money with, former associates said.

He talks like a banker, they said. He has a loan officer's license. He was driven enough to get his college degree in three and a half years.

"He was as pure a white-collar offender as I've ever had to deal with," said Investigator Al Sternberg of the Wake County Sheriff's Office. "His picture to the world was, 'Look at this wonderful house I have, all the nice things I have, the nice car I drive.' "

Police say, though, that at least some of Gleaton's material success was built on lies. Business associates say they were conned, as do former clients.

Even Gleaton's Mercedes may have been a fruit of deception. Police say bank records and a canceled check show he bought it after he persuaded his mother's friend and her daughter to put $70,000 in a nonexistent investment fund focused on church construction. His lawyers say Gleaton did not misuse the money but could not say how he spent it.

Gleaton did not actually need money to claim he was wealthy. In November 2005, for instance, he said in a financial statement that he was worth more than $350 million.

The basis for his claim was a 40-acre onyx mining claim in Arizona. He had persuaded the mine owner, Roy Arthur of Whittier, Calif., to sign over the title for the land to one of his corporations for a single day -- Nov. 8, 2005.

Arthur, who got the title back the next day, said he thought Gleaton was going to use his $330 million mining claim as a "credit enhancement" for startup companies needing cash. Instead, Gleaton tried to use the mine to arrange millions in personal loans, according to Arthur.

"He's a bit of a rascal," Arthur said. "I don't want to have nothing to do with him."

Gleaton played a convincing enough mine magnate. For a time last year, a development group said it would rely on Gleaton to finance a $200 million plan to build two 21-story towers in downtown Lancaster, Pa. Police still do not understand what Gleaton hoped to gain from the deal.

That project's developer, Harry Eng of New York City, said Gleaton had a long list of aspirations and goals. He talked of financing a luxury fashion line that could compete with Gucci. He spent a day riding around upstate New York with Eng in a rented limousine looking for a hotel to buy.

Eng said he began to suspect Gleaton was faking his wealth last spring, after Lancaster's mayor issued a report indicating that the geologist who assessed the mine did not have a license. Lancaster city officials looked into Gleaton's past to make sure he had the money to finance Eng's project, which was going to be on city-owned property.

"He told me he wanted to get involved in humanitarian efforts," Eng said, "which is a load of BS."

Suspicions back home

Gleaton's neighbors in Belle Point started to wonder about him in fall 2005. The balance of their homeowners association account had dwindled to less than $2,000, which was odd considering the neighborhood should have only spent a fraction of the more than $13,000 in dues it collected.

Neighborhood residents do not like to talk about the standoff between them and Gleaton. Police say that after Gleaton repeatedly refused to turn over the Belle Point account books, the homeowners association fired him and asked the association secretary, Christine Ragland, to figure out where the money went.

"It stunk to high heaven of something," Sternberg, the investigator, said. Prosecutors say canceled checks show that Gleaton used neighborhood money to pay for work on his yard and a power bill.

Assistant District Attorney Jacquie Brewer said Gleaton also wrote himself checks out of the neighborhood account.

"A thousand dollars here, $1,500 there, those were made payable directly to him," she said. "It's criminal. But it's also stupid because it's so easily traceable."

Sternberg said Gleaton's work with the Belle Point homeowners association also made him a suspect in other cons -- in part because Gleaton appeared to be funneling large sums of money through the neighborhood account.

Using bank records, Sternberg tracked down the South Carolina women who invested in Gleaton's church-building investment fund. Then, Lancaster city officials called him to talk about what Gleaton had been doing in Pennsylvania.

Sternberg confronted Gleaton last spring. He said they had a five-hour conversation.

Gleaton had plenty to say, according to Sternberg, but it wasn't enough to avoid arrest the next day.

"One thing I've noticed across different kind of embezzlement investigations," Sternberg said, "is that it's usually a funny, weird thing that causes the whole cloth to unravel."