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 June 29, 1937 reads "Giving himself a 'testimonial' on how 'vibrations' shook his body on his thirty-third birthday last Nov. 11 and brought him spiritual ecstasy, John Wuest Hunt is shown on the stand today in his trial on charges brought by Delight Jewett, 17-year-old Denver girl. Hunt said he was reborn on Dec. 2 and took the name of Jesus in Father Divine's cult." Hunt is seated on the witness stand.
Type
image
Format
1 photographic print :b&w ;26 x 21 cm. Photographic prints
Hunt, John Wuest Hunt, John Wuest--Trials, litigation, etc Jewett, Delight--Trials, litigation, etc United States.--Mann Act of 1910--Cases International Peace Mission Criminals--California--Los Angeles Crime--California--Los Angeles Witnesses--California--Los Angeles Cult members--California--Los Angeles Cults--United States Men--California--Los Angeles Trials (Sex crimes)--California--Los Angeles Downtown Los Angeles (Los Angeles, Calif.) Los Angeles Evening Herald and Express photographs Herald-Examiner Collection photographs
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