Rachel Dolezal, the white woman who passed as black and led an NAACP chapter, is facing a lengthy prison term on welfare fraud charges.
Ms. Dolezal, who legally changed her name to Nkechi Diallo in the wake of her “transracial” flap, has been charged with three counts — theft by welfare fraud, perjury, and making false claims to get public assistance. According to KHQ-TV, which broke the charges, she could get up to 15 years in prison.
Ms. Dolezal received $8,747 in food assistance, and $100 in childcare assistance, the Spokane, Washington, NBC affiliate reported, citing court documents.
She received this assistance by reporting that her income was usually less than $500 per month in child support payments, a statement contradicted by bank records obtained by state officials, KHQ reported.
“The bank records, court documents say, showed Diallo had deposited about $83,924 into her bank account in several monthly installments between August 2015 and September 2017, without reporting the income to the Department of Social and Health Services. The money, according to the case file, had come from authoring her book, ‘In Full Color,’ speaking engagements, soap making, doll making, and the sale of her art,” KHQ wrote.
Ms. Dolezal was head of the Spokane chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People until June 2015, when she resigned in wake of her parents telling local media she is white but passing as black. She also was dismissed from a police ombudsman commission and lost a university teaching post.
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She said in 2017 that while she might be “Caucasian biologically” she nevertheless “had an authentic black identity.”
• Victor Morton can be reached at vmorton@washingtontimes.com.
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