Ezeh, of Kent County, Michigan, was also sentenced to a concurrent prison term of 60 months for evading income taxes.
Chief U.S. District Judge Hala Y. Jarbou, who imposed the sentence, characterized Ezeh as “a fraud and a thief,” described the scheme as “brazen and widespread,” and noted that Ezeh stole money intended for some of West Michigan’s most vulnerable children.
Judge Jarbou ordered Ezeh to pay $1.4 million in restitution to the victims of the fraud and $390,174 to the IRS. Judge Jarbou also remanded Ezeh directly to prison to begin serving her sentence immediately.
“Nkechy Ezeh’s greed is beyond reprehensible,” VerHey said. “She stole taxpayer and private-donor dollars meant for low-income children in our community. Instead of helping kids, she spent that money on herself. The stolen money could have supported hundreds of West Michigan children and their families. Judge Jarbou’s sentence was perfectly appropriate.”
Ezeh, the 2018 West Michigan Woman of the Year, a two-time appointee to the State of Michigan’s Early Childhood Investment Corporation’s Executive Committee, and a tenured professor of education, founded Early Learning Neighborhood Collaborative (ELNC), a West Michigan nonprofit funded by the Department of Health and Human Service’s Early Head Start program, the U.S. Department of Education, and private donors.
It provided meals, transportation, funding, advocacy, and other services to children in preschools located in underserved communities.
As a result of the fraud, ELNC had to close its doors in 2023, many West Michigan preschools lost funding, and needy children lost valuable resources.
ELNC also had to lay off its 35 employees without any notice.
Sharon Killebrew, ELNC’s former bookkeeper and Ezeh’s co-conspirator, was sentenced in November 2025 to 54 months in federal prison for her role in the scheme.
In a sentencing memorandum, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said that Ezeh used the stolen money to fund her lifestyle, pay for a family member’s wedding, and to travel to Hawaii, Europe, and Africa.
She placed her family members on a ghost payroll that caused ELNC to pay them hundreds of thousands of dollars for little or no work, and she used money mules to wire hundreds of thousands of dollars of stolen money to her family in Nigeria.
The sentencing memorandum also pointed out that, although the direct victims of the fraud were ELNC’s donors, the federal government’s Early Head Start Program, the U.S. Department of Education, and three of Michigan’s largest, most generous, and most well-known charities – the people most affected were the children and their families who lost the support ELNC once provided.
These were mostly children of color under the age of five years old, 72% of whom lived below the federal poverty level in some of the poorest neighborhoods in Kent County, Kalamazoo, and Battle Creek.
“This case underscores the seriousness of misusing federal grant funds for personal gain,” said Special Agent in Charge Thomas Ethridge of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (HHS‑OIG).
“Our commitment to protecting the integrity of HHS programs remains steadfast, and we will continue working closely with our law enforcement partners to uphold these standards and ensure that violators are held accountable.”
The case was investigated by HHS-OIG and Internal Revenue Service-Criminal Investigation. Assistant U.S. Attorney Clay Stiffler is the prosecutor.
