Title supplied by cataloger.; Photograph was edited for publication purposes. Delight Jewett was a 17 year-old high school student from Denver. John Hunt was a California millionaire and disciple of Father Divine's International Peace Mission cult in Harlem. Calling himself John the Revelator, he met 17-year-old Delight Jewett in December, 1936, and took her back to California without her parents' consent. Renaming her "Virgin Mary," he began sexual relations with her. Father Divine summoned the pair to New York, separated the couple and reprimanded Hunt. The Jewetts, finding their daughter brainwashed into believing she was literally the Virgin Mary, demanded compensation. After the movement's attorneys refused, the outraged Jewetts offered their story to William Randolph Hearst's New York Evening Journal, a critic of the cult. After a manhunt, Hunt was charged, under the Mann Act, with taking a minor across state lines for "immoral purposes." The White-Slave Traffic Act, also known as the Mann Act, is a United States federal law, passed June 25, 1910. The act makes it a felony to engage in interstate or foreign commerce transport of "any woman or girl for the purpose of prostitution or debauchery, or for any other immoral purpose." Hunt was convicted and sentenced to three years and adopted a new name, the "Prodigal Son." Photograph caption dated April 21, 1937 reads "Delight Jewett, 17 year-old high school girl, is shown when she appeared at the federal building in Los Angeles today to tell the federal grand jury her weird charges that she was betrayed in a Beverly Hills mansion. She claims John Wuest Hunt, cult leader, told her she was the new 'Virgin Mary.'" Jewett is seated, smiling up at someone.
Type
image
Format
1 photographic print :b&w ;34 x 23 cm. Photographic prints
Jewett, Delight Jewett, Delight--Trials, litigation, etc Hunt, John Wuest--Trials, litigation, etc United States.--Mann Act of 1910--Cases International Peace Mission Victims of crimes--California--Los Angeles Crime--California--Los Angeles Cult members--California--Los Angeles Cults--United States Young women--California--Los Angeles Trials (Sex crimes)--California--Los Angeles Courtrooms--California--Los Angeles Downtown Los Angeles (Los Angeles, Calif.) Los Angeles Evening Herald and Express photographs Herald-Examiner Collection photographs
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