A controversial religious sect's most visible vestige in Athens has turned to dust.
On Tuesday, demolition workers stripped the Egyptian-themed facade from 815 W. Broad St., the former bookstore of the United Nuwaubian Nation of Moors.
They began ripping into the stucco that covered the building's red brick front walls the same morning Athens real estate investor Jimmy Wilfong closed the deal with the U.S. government, which seized the building in 2006.
"I've been anxious to pull that facade off for two months," said Wilfong, who successfully bid $220,000 for the property in December.
"I want to get the building back to how I remember it," he said.
Before Nuwaubian leader Dwight "Malachi" York bought the building in 2000, it housed Ideal Amusements Co., where Wilfong worked as a student in high school and college.
Federal prosecutors said York used the Nuwaubian sect as a front for a criminal enterprise that laundered money and groomed underage girls for sex. A U.S. District Court jury convicted York of 11 counts of child molestation, racketeering, money laundering and other charges in 2004.
The government seized York's mansion off Timothy Road and auctioned it off in 2006 for $635,000, then last March tried to sell the former bookstore, but no one came close to the minimum bid of $530,000 during an auction at the Clarke County Courthouse.
Government officials realized that the 6,300-square-foot building was overpriced - that it needs extensive repairs - and accepted Wilfong's bid in an online auction ran through mid-December.
"The roof is caving in; it needs new wiring, new plumbing and a new facade," Wilfong said. "All I bought is a parking lot with four walls."
But Wilfong already has one prospective tenant for the building, which he hopes to open in about three months.
"I've got crews lined up and ready to go," he said. "It's a real good time to do something like this because I have faith in the economy, and there's a lot of workers giving good prices who are ready to work."
Wilfong worked a decade for Ideal Amusements, a business the late Charles Johnson opened in 1971.
He drove from town to town to collect money from jukeboxes, pinball machines and pool tables that Ideal Amusements serviced, he said.
Johnson "was like a second father to me," Wilfong said, adding, "Everyone who worked there was a character and we had a lot of fun."
Though 63-year-old York will spend the rest of his life in federal prison - a judge sentenced him to 135 years - York continues to inspire followers in Athens and throughout the country.
An estimated 500 Nuwaubians lived on a 476-acre compound the sect owned in Putnam County, but they dispersed after York's arrest and conviction. The government seized that property as well.
Many Nuwaubians relocated to the Athens area, and each weekend cars with tags from across Georgia and out of state packed the parking lot of a nondescript lodge on West Hancock Avenue.
The group abandoned the lodge toward the end of 2008, reportedly for a new meeting place outside of Atlanta.
