An Iowa woman booked a cruise last year for her daughter’s 2020 high school graduation, but her family was never able to go because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Wanting their deposits back — more than $2,000 in all — Felicia Lee reached out earlier this year to her Norfolk-based travel agent. Her family had known Nakai Koyenhan for years and didn’t expect a problem.
Lee said she received a text in May indicating Koyenhan was stuck in Canada and would be in touch when she returned.
But Koyenhan, 47, wasn’t in Canada. She was in federal prison, serving more than three years for a $390,000 fraud.
“We have no idea who is texting us,” Lee said. “All of our friends and Nakai’s family thought she was in Canada just like we did.”
Shawn Cline, an attorney who represented Koyenhan, declined to comment last week on the cruise booking situation, saying he was unaware of it.
Attempts to reach Koyenhan’s family were unsuccessful. No one answered the number that sent the mystery texts when The Virginian-Pilot called last week.
Koyenhan pleaded guilty in November 2018 to stealing more than $390,000 from her previous employer.
As a bookkeeper for a bed and breakfast called Church Point Manor and its upscale restaurant, The Cellars, Koyenhan forged checks and wired business funds to her personal account, according to court documents. She spent the money on credit card, rent and car payments, travel and on her wedding, which was held in Nigeria.
The theft ultimately led both businesses to close, the owner said.
On July 26, 2019, a federal judge sentenced Koyenhan to three years and one day in prison and to pay full restitution. At the same time, he prohibited Koyenhan “from engaging in any form of self-employment, any aspect of accounting, bookkeeping or payroll services, and/or any similar occupation where the defendant would have access to money.”
This was all news to Lee and her sister, Nashina Morrison. They didn’t know anything about Koyenhan’s legal trouble until they stopped getting responses from her cell phone number and started poking around online. News articles about her imprisonment popped up.
“My whole mouth just dropped,” said Morrison, 47, explaining she and Koyenhan were born just one day apart and that they practically “grew up like sisters.”
“We felt betrayed,” Morrison said.
In an interview, Lee said she began speaking with Koyenhan in May 2019 about booking a cruise to celebrate her daughter’s graduation. Her family went on a cruise to the Bahamas in June 2019 that Koyenhan booked for them through a company called VNK Travel. Koyenhan was actually supposed to join them on the Bahamas cruise, but she canceled at the last minute saying a family member was sick, Morrison said.
Koyenhan would have been awaiting sentencing at that time and barred from leaving the country without court approval.
Lee said they decided to book another trip with Koyenhan, but this time to Jamaica, the Grand Cayman Islands and Mexico.
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Lee said she received her first invoice for the 2020 trip from Koyenhan’s Chocolate Chics Travel business on Aug. 29, 2019.
Koyenhan was to report to prison a day later, according to court records.
“We kept getting invoices after she went to prison,” Morrison said.
Koyenhan is currently incarcerated in a minimum security federal prison in Alderson, West Virginia. Her scheduled release is April 2022, but she is seeking a compassionate release due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Postings to the social media pages for her business have continued to publish while she has been in prison.
Cline, Koyenhan’s attorney, said she is a great candidate for compassionate release due to COVID-19. The Federal Bureau of Prisons said she has a minimum recidivism rate, according to court records she filed in July requesting she be allowed to finish her sentence from home in Norfolk.
Alissa Skelton, 757-222-5155, alissa.skelton@pilotonline.com.