Ty Yiyara claimed to be a former Air Force captain with a master's degree in social work from Dallas Baptist University. He and his wife, Tisa, founded a private Afrocentric school in South Los Angeles two years ago, saying they wanted to improve the educational atmosphere for inner-city children.

Their Enlightened Minds School was granted nonprofit status by the state and received funding from a national scholarship program. Last year, Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan awarded the school founders a proclamation praising them for their "outstanding work as educators and mentors."

But police say Yiyara is an impostor and a convicted sex offender with no apparent military record, whose real name is Joseph Horace Green. They say that the master's degree, which he posted at the school, was bought through a mail-order catalog.