A UNITED States court has sentenced a Nigerian professor, Nkechy Ezeh, to nearly six years in prison for masterminding a massive fraud scheme that diverted more than $1.4 million intended to help low-income preschool children in West Michigan.
Chief US District judge Hala Jarbou delivered the ruling and condemned the 61-year-old Founder of Early Learning Neighborhood Collaborative, calling her a fraud and a thief.
The court ordered Ezeh to repay $1.4 million to fraud victims, an additional $390,174 to the Internal Revenue Service and be taken into custody immediately to begin serving her prison sentence.
Ezeh was once widely celebrated in Michigan’s education and nonprofit sectors for running a nonprofit organisation that provided preschool support services including meals, transportation, advocacy, and educational funding in underserved communities across Kent County, Kalamazoo, and Battle Creek.
The organisation received financial support from federal programmes including Early Head Start and the US Department of Education, along with major private charities, but prosecutors said Ezeh used the nonprofit as a personal cash pipeline.
According to court filings, she diverted nonprofit funds to finance luxury travel to Hawaii, Europe, and Africa, paid for a family member’s wedding, and placed relatives on ELNC’s payroll despite them performing little or no legitimate work.
Authorities also said she used intermediaries to wire hundreds of thousands of dollars to family members in Nigeria, noting that the fallout devastated the organisation and the communities it served.
ELNC shut down in 2023, leaving dozens of employees suddenly unemployed and cutting off services to children living in poverty.
Federal prosecutors noted that 72 per cent of the children served by ELNC lived below the federal poverty line and were primarily children of color under the age of five.
Ezeh’s former bookkeeper and co-conspirator, Sharon Killebrew, was previously sentenced to 54 months in prison for her role in the scheme.
The investigation was led by the US Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General and IRS Criminal Investigation.
The sentencing comes amid a broader federal crackdown on fraud involving taxpayer-funded programmes. Earlier this year, the Department of Justice announced the formation of the National Fraud Enforcement Division, aimed at aggressively prosecuting individuals who misuse federal funds.
Ezeh had publicly denied wrongdoing as federal investigators spent years unraveling the collapse of ELNC. Prosecutors said the case involved years of alleged fraud, litigation, and mounting financial irregularities tied to the nonprofit’s operations.
Ezeh eventually reversed course and entered a guilty plea to wire fraud and tax evasion charges in federal court, admitting that she conspired to steal approximately $1.4 million from ELNC and its donors between 2017 and 2023. According to court records, she accepted responsibility as part of a plea agreement reached shortly after her arrest by the FBI in December 2025.
Nanji is an investigative journalist with the ICIR. She has years of experience in reporting and broadcasting human angle stories, gender inequalities, minority stories, and human rights issues. She has documented sexual war crimes in armed conflict, sex for grades in Nigerian Universities, harmful traditional practices and human trafficking.