A woman facing state child molestation
charges in Putnam County has pleaded guilty to knowing about incidents of
sexual abuse and not reporting them.
Kathy Johnson, wife of the United Nation of Nuwaubian Moors
leader Malachi York, is facing up to three years in prison on this federal
charge, said Pamela Lightsey, a spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney's office for
the middle district of Georgia.
Johnson, 34, was originally indicted with York, who
pleaded guilty in January to transporting minors from New York to Georgia for
the purpose of sexual abuse, including intercourse and sodomy.
Johnson has admitted that she knew of York's crime and did
nothing about it. She has also been charged with several counts of sexually
abusing minors.
She and York are scheduled to be sentenced individually
within the next two months.
Johnson was known among the Nuwaubian as York's "main
wife." The United Nuwaubian Nation of Moors is a predominantly black group
that refers to York as "the master teacher."
The group began as an Islamic sect in the early 1970s in
Brooklyn, N.Y. When York and his followers moved to Putnam County 10 years ago,
the group claimed York was an extraterrestrial.
Despite their leader's imprisonment, the Nuwaubians
continue to live in Putnam County where York purchased a 476 acre farm a decade
ago that is now adorned with pyramids, a sphinx and other Egyptian-style
structures.