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Abandoned Nuwaubian properties await sale date
More articles on this topic: NuwaubiansEATONTON - It’s unclear when the properties forfeited to the federal government by convicted child molester Malachi York will be sold, U.S. Marshal Theresa Rodgers said Monday.
“I cannot say at this time,” Rodgers said. “We have seized the property according to the order of the court.”
The properties, valued at about $1.7 million, are to be sold, with the proceeds going back to the agencies that participated in the investigation and conviction of York.
Marshals seized the property late last week after York’s followers in the United Nuwaubian Nation of Moors abandoned the 476-acre headquarters in rural Putnam County and a house York previously occupied in Athens.
York was sentenced in April to 135 years in prison following his conviction on federal charges of racketeering and child molestation.
A hearing is set for 9:30 a.m. Friday in U.S. District Court in Macon to hear a motion by York for a new trial.
At a hearing in June, several of York’s followers asserted the property the government sought was not subject to seizure because York had transferred ownership to them.
The Nuwaubians are a quasi-religious group that York founded in the late 1960s and moved from suburban New York to Putnam County in 1993.
On July 12, U.S. District Court Judge Ashley Royal ruled against York’s followers, clearing the way for seizure of the Nuwaubian headquarters and the house in Athens.
On July 28, Rodgers sent a letter to the Nuwaubian headquarters at 404 Shady Dale Road, giving them seven days, until Aug. 4, to remove their personal belongings and move off the property.
Robert Ratliff, the lawyer who represents those claiming to hold title to the properties, on Aug. 2 filed notice of intent to appeal Royal’s ruling and asked the U.S. 11th District Court of Appeals to halt seizure of the property. On Aug. 3, the court declined to delay the seizure.
About 50 people had been living on the property. Ratliff said he did not know where those people or anyone who might have been staying at the house in Athens have gone.
The property had several hundred residents at one time, Putnam County Sheriff Howard Sills said.
Meanwhile on Monday, officials with Putnam County Animal Control were trying to rescue a number of cats found on the property.
“I think there are about four adults and maybe a litter of kittens,” Christine Tillman of animal control said Monday.
Late last week, animal control officers removed a number of koi from a pond and placed them with a local resident, she said. Koi are a type of Japanese carp often kept in small ponds as part of home or commercial landscaping.
The Nuwaubian property in Putnam County is decorated with pyramids, Egyptian-style monuments and also American-Indian-style totem poles.
Prior to York’s arrest, he and his followers had battled Putnam County officials for years over zoning and building code violations at the headquarters property.
The Putnam County property served as a base for a series of Nuwaubian bookstores in several states that sold York’s books, videos, dolls and other items, according to Sills.
Hazel Welch, who lives less than a mile from the Nuwaubian headquarters, said she is glad the quasi-religious group, which often sparred with local officials over zoning issues, has left the property.
“It’s just been a hassle the way they have done things around here,” she said.
• Read the Macon Telegraph online
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