Woman who posed as black accused of welfare fraud

SPOKANE ( Washington): A former NAACP leader in Washington state whose life unravelled after she was outed as a white woman pretending to be black has been charged with welfare fraud.

Rachel Dolezal (pic), who legally changed her name to Nkechi Diallo in 2016, was charged this week with theft by welfare fraud, perjury and false verification for public assistance, Spokane news station KHQ-TV reported on Thursday.

She illegally received US$8,747 (RM34,800) in food assistance and US$100 (RM398) in child care assistance from August 2015 through November 2017, court documents said.

An investigation started in March 2017 when a Washington state investigator received information that Diallo had written a book.

The investigator reviewed Diallo’s records and found that she had been reporting her income as usually less than US$500 (RM1,990) per month, court documents said.

A subpoena for her self-employment records, which included copies of her bank statements, showed Diallo had deposited nearly US$84,000 (RM334,260) into her bank account between August 2015 and September 2017, without reporting it to the Department of Social and Health Services.

The money came from authoring her memoir, In Full Color, speaking engagements, soap making, doll making, and the sale of her art, according to the case file.

Diallo did report a “change of circumstance” to the state agency, saying she did a one-time job in October 2017 worth US$20,000 (RM79600), court documents said.

The former civil rights activist told investigators she “fully disclosed her information” and declined to answer further questions, the documents said. — AP