Dwight York

In 2005 federal government officials acquired the property of Tama-Re through asset forfeiture after York was convicted and sentenced to prison for 135 years. He owed money for violating financial laws. After the property was sold, new owners demolished the buildings and monuments.

His case was appealed to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, which upheld the convictions on October 27, 2005. A U.S. Supreme Court appeal was denied in June 2006.

In 2003, York entered into a plea bargain that was later dismissed by the judge. He was convicted by a jury on January 23, 2004. The judge rejected his plea to be returned for trial to his own "tribe", after York claimed status as an indigenous person:

Early in 2004, York was convicted in federal court by a jury of multiple RICO, child molestation, and financial reporting charges. He was sentenced to 135 years in prison.

In early 2003 York's lawyer had him evaluated by a forensic psychologist, who diagnosed a DSM-IV impression consisting of Axis I – Clinical Syndrome of Delusional (Paranoid) Disorder, Generalized anxiety disorder, Adjustment disorder with depressed mood, and Axis II – personality disorders; histrionic personality traits, self-defeating personality traits, and schizotypal personality features.

York and his wife, Kathy Johnson, were arrested in May 2002. 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. 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.

In July 1999, Time magazine reported on the "40-ft. pyramids, obelisks, gods, goddesses and a giant sphinx," built by York's followers in rural Georgia in an article titled "Space Invaders".

York's followers have said that since 1999 York has been a Consul General of Monrovia, Liberia, under appointment from then-President Charles Taylor. They argue he should be given diplomatic immunity from prosecution and extradited as a persona non-grata to Liberia. Officials have not accepted this claim.

Tensions with county authorities increased in 1998, when the county sought an injunction against construction and uses that violated zoning. At the same time, the Nuwaubian community increased its leafletting of Eatonton and surrounding areas, charging white officials with racial discrimination and striving to increase opposition to them. Threats mounted and an eviscerated dog carcass was left at the home of the county attorney.

The community in Brooklyn, reported as identifying as the "Holy Tabernacle of the Most High" and also as the "Children of Abraham", was said to be led by Rabboni Y'shua Bar El Haady. They practiced a mixture of Judaism and Islam. They were reported as numbering about 300 persons and in 1994 the group reportedly still owned nine apartment buildings, of which five were in tax arrears. Local politicians were concerned that the abandoned buildings would become centers of uses that would damage the neighborhood. Anecdotal reports were that some of the group went to Monroe County, New York, and others to Georgia.

At York's direction, the community purchased land and built Tama-Re (originally named Kadesh), an Egyptian-themed complex built on 476 acres (1.93 km) of land near Eatonton, Georgia. It was built over a period of years and completed in 1993.

Anonymous letters were sent to Putnam County officials alleging child molestation at the Nuwaubian community. The FBI, which had started investigating the group in 1993, assigned a major task force to it. In 2002 York was arrested and charged with more than 100 counts of sexually molesting dozens of children, some as young as four years old. According to Bill Osinski, who wrote a 2007 book about York and the case:

Around 1990, York and the Nuwaubian Nation relocated to rural Putnam County, Georgia, where they built a large complex. They came under scrutiny in the early 1990s, after they built Tama-Re, an Egyptian-themed "city" for about a hundred of his followers in Putnam County. 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. He and his group were originally based in Brooklyn, New York and some of them relocated to Athens, Georgia after his arrest. York was convicted in 2004 of child molestation and violations of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. He is serving a 135-year sentence.

Dwight York changed his name legally in 1990 to "Issa al Haadi al Mahdi" when he was still living in Brooklyn. He changed it again in 1993 to "Malachi York", but also adopted a number of titles and pseudonyms, including "The Supreme Grand Master Dr. Malachi Z. York," "Nayya Malachizodoq-El", and "Chief Black Eagle".

York left Brooklyn with an estimated 300 followers about 1990. Some settled in upstate New York. He later moved with numerous followers to Georgia. Others joined them from such cities as Baltimore, Philadelphia, Hartford, New York and Washington, D.C. According to former follower Robert J. Rohan, who later wrote a book about the movement, York moved in order to avoid criminal investigations and other charges in New York.

In 1988 York was convicted of obtaining a passport with a false birth certificate.

Later York formed York Records releasing the music of several successful artists within the genre of R&B, Hip Hop, Gospel, and others.  York Records released York's single called “It’s Too Late” in 1986 featuring Sarah Dash of Patti Labelle's Labelle. In 1988 York Records released “He’s Coming” by Gospel legends Doc Mckenzie and the Hi-Lites. Also in 1988 he released Kenne & Petite's “What Is He To You?”. Petite went onto become the early 90s group Ex-Girlfriend featuring Stacy Francis from X-Factor and TV One's R&B Divas Los Angeles. Then Nubian Egyptian/Sudanese vocalist and oud player Hamza El Din “Live At The Ansaaru Allah Community In America” also in 1998.

He launched his own record label, named Passion Productions, recording as the solo artist "Dr. York". His debut release was the single "Only a Dream" (later included in the album New York, Hot Melt Records UK, 1985). "Dr. York" and Passion Productions were advertised in the May 4, 1985, issue of Billboard magazine.

By 1985 York had added miracle-performance to his repertoire. He claimed to materialize sacred, healing ash in front of his followers, much in the fashion of Sathya Sai Baba.

In the early 1980s, York performed as vocalist with his own groups, known as Jackie and the Starlights, the Students, and Passion.

After York returned from a pilgrimage to (Egypt and Sudan), he invited Sadiq Al-Mahdi to the US. In 1970 his group changed its name to the "Ansaaru Allah Community in the West". A 1993 FBI report described this group as a "front for a wide range of criminal activity, including arson, welfare fraud and extortion."

York has claimed to be an extraterrestrial master teacher from the planet Rizq. He wrote, "We have been coming to this planet before it had your life form on it. ... My incarnation as an Ilah Mutajassid or Avatara was originally in the year 1945 A.D. In order to get here I travelled by one of the smaller passenger crafts called SHAM out of a Motherplane called MERKABAH or NIBIRU." This version of York came to Earth on March 16, 1970. (Comet Bennett, which was visible on that date, is said to have really been York's spacecraft.) York taught that the Motherplane/NIBIRU would launch the Crystal City or New Jerusalem (see: Book of Revelation 21:2) to our solar system from its position in Orion. A 40-year process of taking the 144,000 Chosen Few (see: Book of Revelation 14:1) — 12,000 each from the Twelve Tribes of Israel — into the Planet Craft NIBIRU began on August 12, 2003, and will end on August 12, 2043. These Chosen Few will be groomed for 1,000 years and returned to Earth for the final battle against the Luciferians and also to redeem man from the 6,000-year rulership of the Devil and his seed.

He later changed his name to "Imaam Isa Abdullah" and renamed his "Ansaar Pure Sufi" ministry to the "Nubians" in Brooklyn in 1967. The group was considered to be part of the Black Hebrews phenomenon, under the name "Nubian Islaamic Hebrews" and "Nubian Hebrew Mission" as of 1969. Unlike other groups, they were not Judeo-Christian but Judeo-Islamic. This was also the period of Black Power among some African Americans.

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

In the late 1960s York, calling himself "Imaam Isa", combined elements of the Moorish Science Temple of America, the Nation of Islam, the Nation of Gods and Earths and Freemasonry, and founded a quasi-Muslim black nationalist movement and community. He called it "Ansaar Pure Sufi", or the "Ansaaru Allah Community", c. 1970. He instructed members to wear black and green dashikis.

York says that he was raised in Massachusetts, and at the age of seven went to Aswan, Egypt, to learn about Islam. "My grandfather, As Sayyid Abdur Rahman Al Mahdi, the Imaam of the Ansaars in the Sudan until 1959 AD, upon looking into my eyes foretold that I was the one who would possess 'the light.'" He says he returned to the United States in 1957 at age 12 and continued to study Islam. As an adolescent, he moved with his family to Teaneck, New Jersey.

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

York claims that the name he was given at birth was "Isa Al Haadi Al Mahdi" and that he was not given the name "York" (without a first name) until a month later when he and his mother returned to Boston. David and Mary York had four other children together: David, Dale, Debra and Dennis. York has claimed, without documentation being found, that his father was descended from "Ben" York, an enslaved African American who took part in the Lewis and Clark Expedition (1804-1806).