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." First photograph caption dated April 20, 1937 reads "Ready to tell the amazing story of how she was led to believe she was a new 'Virgin Mary' Delight Jewett, above, 17-year-old Denver girl, today arrived in Los Angeles from New York. She will testify before a federal grand jury which will probe her charges that John Wuest Hunt, portly and wealthy follower of Father Divine, Negro evangelist, took her from her Denver home to his Beverly hills 'cult mansion' and betrayed her. She said for two months she believed Father Divine and his followers were bringing 'heaven on earth.'"; Second photograph caption dated June 22, 1937 reads "Charges of Delight Jewett, above, 17-year-old Denver girl, that she was brought here from Denver and betrayed by John Wuest Hunt in his Beverly hills cult mansion, were to be aired in federal court here as Hunt's trial on Mann act charges opened today. Hunt, known as 'John the revelator,' is a wealthy white disciple of Father Divine, called 'god' by a Harlem cult."
Type
image
Format
1 photographic print :b&w ;26 x 21 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 Portrait photographs Los Angeles Evening Herald and Express photographs Herald-Examiner Collection photographs
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