Rachel Dolezal, the ex-NAACP chapter leader in Washington State who posed as a black woman, has been charged with welfare fraud.
Former NAACP official Rachel Dolezal, a white woman who posed as African American for years, is now facing charges of welfare fraud after investigators say she illegally received thousands of dollars in public assistance.
Dolezal, who legally changed her name to Nkechi Diallo in 2016, is accused of stealing $8,847 in food and child care assistance dating back to August 2015, according to court documents obtained by KHQ-TV. She is charged as “Nkechi Diallo also known as Rachel A. Dolezal” with first-degree theft by welfare fraud, second-degree perjury and false verification for public assistance.
Local reporters who went to her Spokane home seeking comment said she declined to say anything and closed the door.
The investigation into Dolezal began in March of last year when an investigator from the Washington Department of Social and Health Services learned she had written a book that had been published. The investigator did further research into the book’s publisher and discovered “a typical contract would include payments of $10,000 to $20,000 as advances against later royalties,” according to documents.
At this time, Dolezal had been reporting a monthly income of less than $500, which came from child support payments. She resigned from the NAACP in June 2015 when her parents revealed she was actually white, and claimed that since then she had been unemployed and unable to find work, the Spokesman-Review reported.
When asked how she was paying her living expenses, she was quoted in the documents saying, “Barely! With help from friends and gifts.”