Dwight York

For similarly named people, see Dwight York (disambiguation).

Dwight York
York after his arrest in 2002
Born (1945-06-26) June 26, 1945 (age 79)
Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.
Other namesMalachi Z. York, Issa al-Haadi al-Mahdi, and others[2][3][1]
OrganizationNuwaubian Nation[2][3][1]
Criminal statusIncarcerated at ADX Florence in Florence, Colorado[1]
SpouseKathy Johnson[1]
Criminal chargeChild sexual abuse, pedophilia, rape, racketeering, conspiracy, tax fraud[1]
Penalty135 years imprisonment[1]

Dwight D. York[2][3][4] (born June 26, 1945),[1][5][6] also known as Malachi Z. York,[2][3] Issa al-Haadi al-Mahdi,[3] et alii,[2][3][1] is an American criminal, black supremacist, pedophile, and convicted child molester, best known as the founding leader of several black Muslim groups in New York, most notably the Nuwaubian Nation, a black supremacist, new religious movement that has existed in some form since the 1960s.[2][3][1][7][8]

York began founding black Muslim groups in the late 1960s.[2][3][1] In 1967, he was preaching to the "Ansaaru Allah" (viz. African-Americans) in Brooklyn, New York, during the period of the black power movement.[2][3][1] He founded numerous religious movements under various names between the 1960s and 1980s.[2][3][1] These were at first based on pseudo-Islamic themes and Judaism (Nubian Islamic Hebrews).[2][3] Later he developed a theme-park derived from "Ancient Egypt", mixing ideas taken from black nationalism, cryptozoology, Christianity, UFO religions, New Age, and popular conspiracy theories.[2][3][1] He last called his group the United Nuwaubian Nation of Moors, Nuwaubian Nation, or Nuwabians.[2][1]

Around 1990, York and the Nuwaubian Nation relocated to rural Putnam County, Georgia, Stone Mountain, Georgia, where they built a large complex.[1] They came under scrutiny in the early 1990s, after they built Tama-Re, an Egyptian-themed park compound for about a hundred of his followers in Putnam County.[1] Before York's trial, the community had been joined directly and in the area by hundreds of other followers from out of State, while alienating both Black and White local residents. The community was intensively investigated after numerous reports that York had molested numerous children of his followers.[1] He and his group were originally based in Brooklyn, New York and some of them relocated to Athens, Georgia after his arrest.[1] York was convicted in 2004 of child molestation and violations of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.[1][7] He is serving a 135-year sentence.[1]

York and his wife, Kathy Johnson, were arrested in May 2002.[1] In 2004, he was convicted on federal charges of transporting minors across state lines for the purposes of child sexual molestation, as well as racketeering and financial reporting violations.[1] York's case was reported as the largest prosecution for child molestation ever directed at a single person in the history of the United States, both in terms of number of victims and number of incidents.

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v "Nuwaubian Nation of Moors". SPLCenter.org. Montgomery, Alabama: Southern Poverty Law Center. 2022 [September 2015]. Archived from the original on September 8, 2015. Retrieved January 1, 2022.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Palmer, Susan J. (2021). "The United Nuwaubian Nation". In Zeller, Ben (ed.). Handbook of UFO Religions. Brill Handbooks on Contemporary Religion. Vol. 20. Leiden and Boston: Brill Publishers. pp. 343–353. doi:10.1163/9789004435537_017. ISBN 978-90-04-43437-0. ISSN 1874-6691. S2CID 236767801.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Palmer, Susan J. (2021). "The Ansaaru Allah Community". In Cusack, Carole M.; Upal, M. Afzal (eds.). Handbook of Islamic Sects and Movements. Brill Handbooks on Contemporary Religion. Vol. 21. Leiden and Boston: Brill Publishers. pp. 694–723. doi:10.1163/9789004435544_037. ISBN 978-90-04-43554-4. ISSN 1874-6691.
  4. ^ "United States v. York, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, October 27, 2005". Findlaw.
  5. ^ Purported birth certificate of York shows birth as June 26, 1945, Archived August 21, 2016, at the Wayback Machine
  6. ^ Philips, Abu Ameenah Bilal. The Ansar Cult in America, Tawheed Publications 1988, p. 1. Philips claims that in 1975 York's publications changed his declared birth year from 1935 to 1945, to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the birth of the Sudanese Mahdi, who is popularly believed to have been born in 1845.
  7. ^ a b Menjor, David S. (September 28, 2018). "Mixup at U.S. Bureau of Prisons over Identity of Dr. Malachi York and Son, Dwight". Liberian Observer. Archived from the original on September 2, 2019. Retrieved September 2, 2019.
  8. ^ Moser, Bob. "'Savior' in a Strange Land: A black supremacist cult leader meets his match in rural Georgia", Southern Poverty Law Center Intelligence Report 107 (Fall, 2002), as archived by the Internet Archive March 2005; Archived June 4, 2017, at the Wayback Machine