Dwight York

Who is Dwight York?

Dwight York, also known as Malachi Z. York, Issa Al Haadi Al Mahdi, et alii, is an American musician, writer, and leader of the Georgia-based "Nuwaubian" movement, currently imprisoned on a 135-year sentence on child molestation charges and violations of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.

York's "ministry" began in the late 1960s, from 1967 preaching to the "Ansaaru Allah" in Brooklyn, and he founded numerous esoteric or quasi-religious fraternal orders under various names during the 1970s and 1980s, at first centered on pseudo-Islamic themes, Judaism, and later moving to a loose "Ancient Egypt" theme, eclectically mixing ideas taken from black nationalism, cryptozoological and UFO religions and popular conspiracy theory. It is now called "Nuwabians".

York and the Nuwaubians came under increased government scrutiny in the early 1990s after they built Tama-Re, an Egyptian-themed "city" featuring pyramids, temples, and living quarters for about a hundred of his followers, in Putnam County, Georgia. York was arrested in May 2002, and in 2004 convicted for transporting minors across state lines for the purposes of sexual molestation, racketeering, and financial reporting charges. 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.