A Raleigh woman accused of filing a fraudulent deed on a multimillion-dollar North Raleigh home was arrested on May 22, 2026, after authorities say she failed to show up in court, and she is now jailed on bond topping $500,000. The arrest breathes new life into a case that has been crawling through both civil and criminal dockets since last year, and she is scheduled to be back in court in June. Local officials say the latest warrants were issued after she missed a required hearing in March 2025.
According to ABC11, Dawn Mangum was taken into custody last Friday and is being held on more than a half-million dollars bond. Court records show she had been wanted since March 2025 after failing to appear on criminal charges tied to a warranty deed recorded against homeowner Craig Adams' North Raleigh property.
A Wake County civil judge had already weighed in on the paperwork itself, ruling that the deed Mangum allegedly filed was fraudulent and ordering her to pay the homeowner's attorney fees, WRAL reported. That civil order cleared the immediate cloud on the public record but did not end the criminal case or change the limited, ministerial role of the county's recording office.
Forensic exam, missed deadlines and charges
At a February 2025 hearing, a judge ordered a local forensic evaluation and warned Mangum she would be taken into custody if she did not complete it, a timeline ABC11 later reported she missed. After Mangum did not appear on March 3, 2025, warrants were issued, and she was later booked on failure-to-appear charges in addition to the original counts of attempting to obtain property by false pretenses and forgery of deeds or wills.
Why recorded deeds can be hard to undo
Under North Carolina law, much of the responsibility for a clean title falls on the parties involved. Registers of deeds generally record documents that meet basic statutory form requirements and are not tasked with independently testing the legal sufficiency of those filings, per G.S. 47-14, according to FindLaw. Legal analysts say that means homeowners who discover a fraudulent deed in the public record usually have to clear title through a civil action, even if criminal charges are brought or a judge later declares the deed void.
What’s next
With Mangum now back in custody, prosecutors and defense attorneys are expected to address the outstanding forensic evaluation before the scheduled June hearing, since the criminal case cannot move forward until that assessment is completed. The civil judgment branding the deed as fraudulent remains on the public record while the criminal process plays out, and local reporting indicates the community and lawmakers are still watching to see whether policy or administrative changes emerge to head off similar filings in the future.
