Religious Sect Members Could Face Charges For Lying

Associated Press/December 8, 2003

Brunswick -- Members of a religious sect who asked residents for opinions about their jailed leader's molestation case while marching in a city Christmas parade could face charges for lying on an application to participate in the event, a prosecutor says.

United Nuwaubian Nation of Moors members who marched in Saturday's parade told the event organizer when they applied to participate that they were a Mason's group, officials said.

Authorities are considering whether to charge the group members with submitting false information to a government agency, which is a felony, said Brunswick prosecutor Stephen Kelley.

During the parade, Nuwaubians handed out literature and asked spectators about the guilt or innocence of their leader, Malachi York. Mayor Brad Brown, who was in the parade, said a document entitled "Medical Records Don't Lie" contained profanity, and in some cases was given to children.

The Nuwaubian delegation in the parade included depictions of the Egyptian pharaoh Rameses, participants wearing bird and cow masks, and a group of mummies carrying parasols.

The United Nuwaubian Nation of Moors is a group started in New York in the early 1970s.

York who has alternately claimed to be Muslim, Christian, Native American and from another planet moved the group to a 476-acre farm in Putnam County in 1993.

York's trial on federal child molestation charges is set for next month in Brunswick. The case was moved from Macon because of pretrial publicity.