York's sect at it again

Followers of convicted child molester and sect leader Dwight "Malachi" York - some from Clarke County - are bombarding officials at a federal maximum security lock-up with fake documents that seek to free him from a 135-year prison term.

The documents, some stamped by Athens-Clarke notaries, claim York has been falsely imprisoned since 2004 and should be released because he is an African diplomat, officials said.

"They tried to get him out of prison by saying he was a diplomat from Liberia and that he's being illegally held under the Geneva Conventions, but that doesn't apply, because he's not a prisoner of war," Athens-Clarke police Detective Beverly Russell said last week.

York is leader of the Nuwaubian Nation of Moors, a purported black supremacist group that is on the Southern Poverty Law Center's list of hate groups.

Officials said he used the sect as a front for a criminal enterprise, and in 2004, York was convicted in U.S. District Court in Brunswick on charges of racketeering, child molestation, transporting minors for unlawful sex and tax evasion.

An estimated 500 Nuwaubians once lived on a 476-acre compound the sect owned in Putnam County, but they dispersed after York's conviction, and the government seized the property.

Many Nuwaubians relocated to Athens, where York had owned a mansion off Timothy Road, and they met each weekend at a lodge on West Hancock Avenue. The group abandoned the lodge toward the end of 2008, reportedly for a new meeting place outside of Atlanta.

Still, six notaries public who placed their stamp on the fraudulent documents that sought to free York have Athens addresses, according to police.

By placing their seals on fake documents, the notaries committed misdemeanor fraud, Russell said, but for police to bring charges they would have to prove that the documents were notarized in Georgia, a near impossibility.

"When they wrote all this stuff up and notarized it they violated their notary code" because they knew the documents were false, the detective said. "It they could have done it anywhere, in any state."

It's now a civil issue, she said.

Russell turned over the documents to Clarke County Court Clerk Beverly Logan, who is responsible for commissioning notaries as well as canceling them.

Logan said she was looking into whether the notaries abused their authority.

"I just received the police reports, and I have some researching to do on the state statutes," Logan said. "Then, I'm going to afford them the chance to have an administrative hearing."

The FBI gave Russell copies of the notarized fake documents on Dec. 10, after they got them fro