Spokane, WA – The white woman who pretended to be black and because the NAACP Spokane Chapter President has been arrested for welfare fraud.
Dolezal legally changed her name to Nkechi Diallo in 2016, according to KHQ-TV.
The state says that Diallo failed to report $80,000 she made for a book she wrote on her experiences while she continued to collect public assistance.
Diallo has been charged with 1st Degree Theft by Welfare Fraud, Perjury in the 2nd Degree and False Verification for Public Assistance. She faces up to 15 years in prison, according to KHQ.
Diallo illegally received $8,747 in food assistance and $100 in childcare assistance from August 2015 through November 2017, according to court documents.
The investigation into the alleged fraud began in March 2017 when a state investigator received a tip that Diallo had written a book that was published.
The investigator said he knew a typical publishing contract was around $20,000.
Diallo had claimed that her income was less than $500 per month in child support payments.
When asked how she was paying her bills, she allegedly told the state, “Barely! With help from friends and gifts.”
However, the state put in a subpoena to get her bank statements which showed that she had deposited $83,924 into her bank account in monthly installments between August 2015 and September 2017.
She did not report that income to the Department of Social and Health Services.
The money came from her book, “In Full Color,” speaking engagements, and her sale of art as well as soap making and doll making, according to state documents.
While being investigated, Diallo reported a “change of circumstance” to the state and said a one-time job got her $20,000 in October of 2017.
Diallo denied that there were discrepancies in her income reporting. When pressed further, she then told the investigator she didn’t have to answer any more questions.
The state of Washington is seeking restitution as well as prosecution on the case.
The Department of Social and Health Services has also requested that Diallo be disqualified from receiving food assistance for at least a 12-month period for purposely violating the rules.
While Diallo was known as Rachel Dolezal, she made the news when her parents publicly called her out for being white. She had previously told people that her father was black and that he fled the deep south "because a white cop was hunting him," according to Daily Mail.
Prior to her parents speaking out, she was an NAACP chapter president, chair of police ombudsman commission, and an instructor in the Africana Studies program at Eastern Washington University.