SAN JOSE — A real estate agent who went on the lam after scamming a family and four banks out of roughly $750,000 was sentenced Tuesday to more than six months in jail, according to prosecutors.

The Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office said between 2006 and 2009 Nancy Kempis, 64, of San Jose, convinced a family facing foreclosure to sell their home to her at a reduced price, then rented it back to them with the promise that she would eventually return it.

Kempis instead used the home to obtain multiple mortgages and then defaulted herself, according to prosecutors. When the home was finally foreclosed, the family was evicted and became homeless.

Prosecutors said Kempis disappeared after being charged with four felony counts of grand theft and one felony count of conspiracy to defraud.

Over the summer, investigator Tanaya Rose found Kempis living under the alias Morpheus Daw Pud Ko in New York City, where she authored a book called “Asdahlia — Child of the Sea” and was helping run a women’s ministry, according to prosecutors.

The book, written under the pseudonym Nancy Stanton, is about a young American teacher in the early 1900s who encounters “suicide warriors” during an adventure in the Philippines but is saved by a pirate’s daughter, according to a description on Amazon.com.

Kempis pleaded guilty to the five felony counts in August.

“Ms. Kempis scammed hundreds of thousands of dollars and drove a family into homelessness,” Deputy District Attorney Charles Huang said in a statement Tuesday. “We are pleased that despite her attempt to flee justice, she was held accountable for her crimes.”

Huang said he objected to the sentence, but the judge’s decision was influenced by Kempis’ recent poor health.

“We felt that she should have received more time,” he said.

Kempis and her loan agent husband, Orlando Kempis, were co-conspirators in the crime, Huang said. However, he did not run and pleaded guilty to one felony count of conspiracy to defraud.

Nancy Kempis has paid back $500,000 of the $750,000 she took, but the money has gone to the four banks she defrauded, said Huang, adding that the family remains destitute.