On Theft & Fraud Closer to Home

 

Hard to believe the type of fraud recently revealed to have been going on in other states was also happening much closer to home. This week, Mlive, under the heading of "Ex-CEO pleads guilty in $1.4M fraud at childhood learning nonprofit" published as news the fact that Nkechy Ezeh, a former Gov. Gretchen Whitmer appointee and professor at Aquinas College in Grand Rapids, MI, "is now facing two decades in prison after pleading guilty in December to wire fraud and stealing more than $1 million from an early education nonprofit".

In a 2022 profile for Voyage Michigan, Ezeh described how she came to America from Nigeria with a high school diploma and worked through "structural racism" while raising five children, to attend Community College, and later earn a doctorate degree and land a full tenured professorship at Aquinas College. In 2011 she founded the ELNC- Early Learning Neighborhood Collaborative and ran it as CEO until "the nonprofit launched an internal investigation in early 2023 after a whistleblower's complaint relating to Dr. Ezeh’s alleged conduct, specifically referencing her alleged “reckless spending. The lawsuit that followed claimed the investigation found that Dr. Ezeh had used “a web of interrelated organizations to funnel hundreds of thousands of dollars to herself, as well as to her family and friends — money that should have been used to support at-risk youth.”

From the Mlive account, on January 14, 2026: "Nkechy Ezeh, founder and CEO of the Early Learning Neighborhood Collaborative, "pleaded guilty to wire fraud and tax evasion in a scheme that forced the nonprofit to shut down after a dozen years preparing about 8,000 preschoolers for kindergarten in Kent County, Battle Creek and Kalamazoo.

Ezeh worked with ELNC bookkeeper Sharon Killebrew to create nearly $500,000 in fake invoices, as well as created fake daycare businesses to siphon off hundreds of thousands of dollars more, which Ezeh used for personal travel to Hawaii, Nigeria and Liberia, according to court documents cited by the news site. Ezeh’s attorney, Mary Chartier, told MLive her client “is committed to taking full responsibility and accountability for her actions. “She is deeply remorseful to anyone who has been negatively impacted,” Chartier said. ELNC President Amy DeLeeuw offered a decidedly different perspective following Ezeh’s plea hearing in U.S. District Court on Jan. 14, noting in a statement the former CEO’s “failure to meaningfully articulate the nature and scope of her criminal misconduct.” “Her theft of million of dollars intended for the most vulnerable of children was brazen, all encompassing and unconscionable,” DeLeeuw said. “To date, Nkechy has made no effort to repay any of the millions of dollars she stole from ELNC,” the statement read. “I trust Nkechy’s demeanor at today’s hearing did not go unnoticed by Chief Judge Hala Jarbou. I and the board will have more to say in our victim impact statement and look forward to her sentencing hearing on May 13.” Killebrew pleaded guilty earlier this year to engaging in conspiracy to defraud a federally funded program of $1,170,935 and tax evasion, and was sentenced to four years, six months in prison. Ezeh agreed to pay $1.4 million in restitution to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Service’s Early Head Start Programs and other organizations as part of her plea agreement, which also detailed $390,000 in back taxes, according to media reports."

The hill they chose to die on

 

On Finding Fraud & Treachery

While looking up images for the Underworld online for a drawing project I've been doing, I was surprised to the point of stopped in my tracks to come across the red one below and discover the position Fraud held in the nine Circles of Hell in Dante's Inferno!  It's located in the eighth circle, close to the bottom of the pit, situated between Violence above and Treachery (involving fraudulent acts between individuals who share special bonds of love and trust) below in the ninth circle .  And who shows up, to occupy the space and walk the line between Fraud and Treachery?  The Sowers of Discord, the Liars and the Falsifiers!!  

From there I found this description/quote on the Wiki: "In Dante's poem, The Divine Comedy, Hell is depicted as nine concentric circles of torment located within the Earth; it is the 'realm ... of those who have rejected spiritual values by yielding to bestial appetites or violence, or by perverting their human intellect to fraud or malice against their fellowmen'."

How apt is this scenario for depicting the hole being dug in our current culture, seven hundred years after Dante's imaginative vision of the afterlife was published?

On Furtive Stealing & Standing with Barbarism

 

Now it can be told

Notice how, for the past year, Trump has been talking about this new Golden Age and how how the economy is going to look like 1955 again (figurately speaking)?

Well, we all get a laugh out of his hyperbole and his marketing chutzpah, but how much is real? The answer is a ton.

What you see in the vid obviously did not spring full blown like Athena from Zeus's head. There had to be a lot of thought, a lot of research, a lot of analysis, a lot of knowns and unknowns (thank you, Donald Rumsfeld).

The great economic boom, $2/gal gas, GDP > 3%, and starving out all those over-the-hill Commie regimes that exist in this hemisphere all had to be developed into a viable plan.

It's a little how all the Lefties made fun of the Grenada operation, but, if you were paying attention, you saw it stopped the Russian plans for Latin America cold. I'm the first to say some of the outcomes mentioned in the vid didn't occur to me, although 500B free bbls of oil didn't seem like a bad deal, but some of the more sweeping geopolitical benefits are quite fascinating.

Note, please, the God Emperor of the Cherry Blossom Throne is winging his way to Davos to lay down the law to the old Nazis and their over-the-hill Commie wannabes. Cutting off Venezuelan oil hits Cuba, Red China, and Russia where they can't afford to be hit. We know Iran is hanging by the slenderest of threads. The people in China and Cuba are more than unhappy with life there. Once the dominos fall, when do they stop? That dream people had at the end of WWII might just be within their grasp.

There's also the fact our voting machines are made in Venezuela.

Taw Jackson lives.

On Finger Pointing Part II, Above, Below & Behind

 

On Words & Reality

 

What We've Been Waiting For

At times, we have been stupified by our black brethren and sistren's inability to see how the Democraty party has been using them. One reason is that black urban subculture is almost astoundingly monolithic. In winter (on a long commute through West Philly), they all wear Kangol caps and Triple FAT Goose coats. In summer (various years), it was Colorado Rockies or TB Devil Rays baseball gear. Given the fracturing of the black family, it seems unlikely because elders passed down the worship of Franklin Roosevelt.

For 50+ years we've been asking. when will black people wake up? Seems like our prayers have been answered. Blame it on the God Emperor of the Cherry Blossom Throne sending troops into the innercity to eradicate crime. Blame it on this crazy young generation realizing 50 years of Democrat subservience has gotten them zip.

Much like the Hispanics turning against the Demos' sponsorship of illegal immigration, this is the Demos' worst nightmare. This, along with mass deportations and the seizure of Venezuela (where all the voting machines are made, I'm told), may well be why the coming election may turn out differently.

Film at 11.

On Point & Insurrection

 

On Treasure Chests & Gasbag Buddies

 

On Usefulness, Mattering & Making a Difference for Good

 

Scott Adam's cartoons and books were a blessing to our family, offering humor, direction and insight during the our home school years.  Adams,  Bill Watterson and Gary Larson, were our three favorite cartoonists, and we ended up with all their books in our library.  On Jan 1, 2026, Adams wrote his last message, delivered the day he died, which included his final encouragement and directive: "Be useful".  We experienced him as useful.  And we move forward in the hope that humor, art, thoughtfulness and authenticity matter and make a difference, as it did when we took in what was expressed and revealed by him in his work.  

On Sprouts & Blaps

 

On Seeing & Saying Things

 Here's the series that stood out to me today from Powerlines Week in Pictures, with Minnesota and Waltz in the news in the worst possible ways.

This is what I have against the Protestant Bible

OK we all know the 10 Commandments Chuck Heston brought down from Paramount are not the ones in the Bibles. It's not Thou Shalt Not Kill, but Thou Shalt Not Murder. It's not Thou Shalt Not Steal, but Thou Shalt Not Kidnap (still trying to figure out that one).

Now here's another one. I saw reference to this on another website with guys bragging how their old man beat the Hell (literally) out of them and it made them the swell guys they are today. Having felt my father's hand and sharp tongue for the first 11 years of my life, I can only say the only useful thing I learned was, "Look it up", any time I asked him a question. Even my sister, whom he favored (she looked like his side of the family), later said that I was treated rather brutally.

So it was that I came across an alternative view of the old "Spare the rod and spoil the child" wheeze which has gone down in American folklore as how child-rearing (as opposed to parenting) is supposed to be done. The author makes the point, with the help of the 23rd Psalm context of "thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me" where the rod is the shepherd's crook, guiding and protecting, rather than beating.

I have no kids, but I do have several nephews who are like sons to me. I know most of you have grandchildren.I'm hardly one to give advice here, but this struck me. What we say and do in front of the little monsters does have an impact.

Something to keep in mind.

PS Feel free to disagree.