The sensitive matter at the center of the Rachel Dolezal family schism concerns a felony case involving charges of sex assault against Dolezal’s older brother, the Daily News has learned.
The white Dolezal, who has made international headlines for masquerading as a black woman, has been assisting a victim who has accused Dolezal’s biological older brother of child molestation in Colorado, sources confirmed to The News Saturday.
Joshua Dolezal, 39, was charged in 2013 with four felony counts of sex abuse of a victim who was a minor at the time, sources and court records confirmed.
The ongoing case in Clear Creek County is set to go to trial later this summer and has a status conference set for Monday, the sources confirmed.
Dolezal declined to speak with The News on Saturday but previously suggested the timing of her white Montana-based parents’ media interviews about her racial identity was somehow connected to the Colorado case — and designed to damage her credibility.
The embattled head of the Spokane chapter of the NAACP, now under scrutiny for claiming she is black, kept a low profile Saturday after taking the 21-year-old adopted black brother she has been raising as a son to the airport.
Attempts to reach Dolezal’s parents, and biological brother Joshua Dolezal, who now lives in Indiana, were unsuccessful Saturday.
He remains out on bail.
The alleged victim, whose identity is being withheld because of the nature of the charges, also did not respond to an email request for comment.
Saturday’s stunning revelations came as the 37-year-old Dolezal was expected to speak with members of the local NAACP on Monday about the racial ruse that went viral since coming to light on Thursday.
It’s been years since she spoke with her parents, Larry and Ruthanne Dolezal. She became estranged from the pair well before the criminal case was brought against her brother, sources have said. Dolezal cut off contact with them sometime after her 2004 divorce and increasingly embraced black culture and brought her adopted brother Izaiah Dolezal to live with her in Idaho and Washington when he was a teen.
She even began claiming a close friend, Albert Wilkerson, a black man, was her father.
Paternal uncle Dan Dolezal said Dolezal and Wilkerson shared a father-daughter type of bond, but that her characterization of him as her real father bothered her biological relatives.
“I think Albert was kind of baffled as well,” said the uncle, 63. “When she started calling him dad two or three years ago, it caused my brother quite a bit of pain.”
Dan Dolezal remains the last line of communication between the divided family — and he holds out hope for a resolution.
“I wish Rachel the best and would like to see her land on her feet,” he told The News. “I want to see a rapprochement. But there are issues that need to be resolved.”
Source: NY Daily News