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Three men associated with the United Nuwaubian Nation of Moors, an embattled religious sect based in Eatonton, were arrested last week in DeKalb County after, police said, they tried to fraudulently buy two houses in Stone Mountain.
The men reportedly planned to sell the homes and turn the money over to the Nuwaubians to purchase 200 acres in Bibb County for a "rebirth" of the Nuwaubian Nation, said Sgt. K.K. Jones of DeKalb County Police Department's fraud unit.
"They submitted paperwork to a sales agent for the property," Jones said. "The sales agent submitted that to the bank, and it came back that the documents didn't have any true financial value to them."
The documents were "certified tenders that were tied to a lien they put on the (U.S.) Postal Service" for $283 million, Jones said.
One of the men, William Carroll, who is also known as Nayya Rafl El, had been fired from his job with the postal service in 1991. He was reinstated in 1999 after a judge determined the postal service didn't let him know he could appeal the firing.
"They had to reinstate him with back pay," Jones said. "He connected in with the Nuwaubians, and they told him the judge gave him a settlement."
According to Jones' description of events, Carroll utilized what is known as "common law," a system of law employed by anti-government militias that relies on what is called "voluntary contracts." In 1999, members of the Nuwaubian Nation began filing common law complaints against government officials, law enforcement officers, judges and members of the media.
Jones said Carroll made an offer of voluntary contract to the postal service for $283 million and then through the DeKalb County Clerk of Court filed a lien against the post office's payroll account, assets and real property.
Using documents they created based on this $283 million post office lien, the three men attempted to buy the houses in Stone Mountain, Jones said.
The other two men arrested in the case are Robert C. Dukes, who is also known as Nayya Elisha Isra EL, and Darius Sampson, who also goes by the name KhuFu. All three have been charged with theft by deception and identity fraud.
Jones said the men have admitted to being members of the Nuwaubian Nation, and said they were going to use money from selling the Stone Mountain houses to buy 200 acres in Bibb County, where they planned to support a "rebirth" of the Nuwaubian Nation.
Jones said he anticipates more arrests.
The Nuwaubian group has dwindled from what was once a membership in the thousands to an estimated few hundred since leader Malachi York was arrested in May 2002 and charged with state and federal counts of molesting children.
In January, just before he was scheduled to go to trial, York pleaded guilty to state and federal charges and the plea agreement would have put him in federal prison for 15 years.
But this summer, U.S. District Judge Hugh Thompson rejected the plea agreement, opening the door for York to withdraw his guilty plea. Thompson has since recused himself from the case.
York is currently in a court-ordered psychiatric evaluation in New York, and U.S. District Judge Ashley Royal, who is now the judge in the case, has scheduled the trial to begin after the first of the year.
York has not withdrawn his guilty plea on the state or federal charges, but did say in open court that he was coerced into pleading guilty.
York has claimed that he and his followers are indigenous people and that according to a United Nations treaty, he must be released to the custody of his own people for trial. When York and the Nuwaubians first moved to Putnam County from New York in 1993, York claimed to be from another planet.