Mexican Naasón Joaquín García, leader of the Church of La Luz del Mundo, pleaded guilty this Friday (3) to three counts of sexual abuse of minors to which he is responding in a US court, California Attorney General Rob Bonta said. with statement.
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García’s trial was supposed to have started on Monday, but in an unexpected turn of events, he reached a settlement with the plaintiffs, pleaded guilty and is due for a verdict next Wednesday morning.
Garcia faces 19 charges in total, including rape, possession of child pornography and human trafficking. The crimes are said to have been committed between June 2015 and June 2019
Almost three years ago, García, leader of one of the largest evangelical churches in the world, was arrested at the Los Angeles airport. His trial was supposed to start in 2020 but was postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic and various strategies of his defense.
Below we share with you the details of the process that should still have a big impact.
Joaquín García has been International President of the Church of La Luz del Mundo since 2014.
He took office after the death of his father, Samuel Joaquín Flores, who had been in charge of the community for 50 years. He had also inherited the role from his ancestor Eusebio Joaquín González, who organized the Church on April 6, 1926 in Guadalajara, Mexico.
Little is known about the defendant, apart from the story he told to official portals and community funds.
For example, it is known that at the age of 14 he began work as a missionary for the Church in the popular neighborhoods of Guadalajara, where its headquarters are still located.
He was soon chosen to be in charge of the movement in the United States and later traveled to Europe, Asia and Oceania.
When he took over the presidency of the church, he created a communication structure on social networks that allowed him to increase the number of believers, according to the movement’s official site.
And at the same time, between 2015 and 2018, according to California prosecutors, Joaquín García and some of his associates exploited this structure to commit sexual abuse and other crimes, which he and the community he directs deny.
Based on these allegations, he was arrested on June 3, 2019, along with one of his assistants, Susana Medina Oaxaca, upon their arrival at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) on a private jet.
And for that, he’s being tried in the California city’s Superior Court.
2. What is he accused of?
“Crimes like those alleged in this complaint have no place in our society. Period,” said thenCalifornia Attorney General Xavier Becerra — now Secretary of Health and Human Services — in announcing his arrest.
At this point, 25 charges were pending against the socalled “Apostle of Jesus Christ.”
But the number has fluctuated in recent years and the current total is 19, including allegations of child sexual abuse, rape, possession of child pornography and human trafficking.
The alleged crimes took place in Los Angeles between June 2015 and June 2019.
The criminal case is based on statements by five anonymous women, videos and conversations conducted on phone apps.
For example, the indictment alleges that three minors, identified as Jane Doe 1, 2 and 3, were invited to be part of a “special” group that saw the church leader whenever he visited Los Angeles.
After that, they are said to have invited people to dance in scantily clad, participated in orgies and posed naked in hotels and other places, according to the indictment.
“Naasón lived 90% of his time in a porn movie. And he could make it happen because he had money and power,” said Sochil Martin, the young American who discovered the church’s sex scandal after serving as a “recruiter” and with whom BBC News Mundo (Spanish BBC service) spoke in April 2020.
In addition to the number of charges against Joaquin Garcia, the bail set against him also varied and currently stands at $90 million, the highest in California history.
Joaquín García is awaiting his sentence at the Los Angeles County Men’s Central Penitentiary.
3. What have he and his defense already said?
Joaquín García dismissed all charges during a Sept. 19, 2019, hearing before Judge Ronald S. Coen, repeating words dictated by his attorney, Alan Jackson.
“How many humiliations, how many ridicules, how many insults, how many provocations have we endured! The public ridicule, the mockery of me or the Church, the lynching of the media,” published the Church of La Luz del Mundo through its representatives in December 2020
His defense argued from the outset that prosecutors tampered with the evidence to implicate the defendant in acts he had nothing to do with.
In the motion to dismiss the case — which Judge Stephen A. Marcus dismissed on May 2 — attorneys argued that prosecutors made difficult access to the material on which the charges were based, which could contain evidence relevant to the defendant be cheap.
The defense argues some whistleblowers put the client in a “money trap” and prosecutors distorted conversations with the accused “to aggravate the case.”
Even the church he led compared his situation to Jesus Christ and considered it “unfair”.
“We are confident that the completion of the process will show what is a constant for us: the integrity and honor of a man we know, with whom we have had to work closely in pastoral care (…)”, Pastor Elíezer Gutiérrez, Church Media Minister, told BBC News Mundo.
Regarding Sochil Martin’s allegations, the church claims that it is only trying to make a profit.
“Sochil has filed a civil lawsuit whose aim is 100% economic,” Abner Nicolás Menchaca Tristán, pastor and deputy director of public affairs at La Luz del Mundo church, told BBC News.
And they also deny allegations against the community that it was behavior to “persuade” women, including minors, to submit to the abuse.
“This type of expression not only reflects reality, but it seems to me that it hurts a lot of people like me and my brothers present here, and (who) we continue to go to church today, we strive to be better,” added Narrator Eliezer added Gutierrez. during an interview with BBC News Mundo at the main temple of La Luz del Mundo in Los Angeles.
Church officials have condemned attacks on their temples and members as a result of the lawsuit.
4. Who are the other defendants?
Susana Medina Oaxaca, who was arrested with Joaquín García at Los Angeles Airport in 2019, Alondra Ocampo and Azalea Rangel Meléndez are codefendants in the case.
Ocampo, a 39yearold American, pleaded guilty to four counts in October 2020: three of contacting a minor for sex offenses and one of forced sexual penetration.
Neither her attorney, Fred Thiagarajah, nor the attorney general’s office have released the terms of Ocampo’s guilty plea or whether she will testify at Joaquín García’s trial.
A sentencing hearing is scheduled for October 12 and she is currently being held without bail at Lynwood Women’s Prison in Los Angeles.
“She pleaded guilty. The apostle pleaded not guilty. The behavior is attributed to the one who commits it,” emphasized Pastor Abner Nicolás Menchaca Tristán in an interview with BBC News Mundo.
“It will be the law that will determine if this is a strategy to reduce a potential sentence for them because the sentence is individual,” he added.
Oaxaca, on the other hand, claims she is innocent and has been released on bail.
And Azalea Rangel is wanted. She has two counts of rape and forced oral penetration against an adult woman in the congregation.
5. What is the power of the Church of La Luz del Mundo?
While the trial is pending, Garcia remains the international president of the Church of La Luz del Mundo, a congregation whose website claims to have a presence in 58 countries and at least 5,000 believers.
Three weeks before his arrest, García was honored on his 50th birthday. The event took place at the Palacio de Bellas Artes, the pinnacle of cultural ennoblement in Mexico, and was recognized by at least 35 lawmakers.
When the event became known and became a scandal, the church insisted that it was not a religious ceremony but a cultural act.
During a morning session this week, Culture Minister Alejandra Frausto confirmed it was “a concert as planned” and Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador called for tolerance.
After news of the arrest, the President returned to the subject, stating: “Independently of Belas Artes, it was not known, the authority had no information about what was learned yesterday, and any person, citizen or association can confess. freedom and tolerance”.
Specialists like Elio Masferrer, researcher at the National School of Anthropology and History (ENAH), guarantee that the religious group has always been close to power.
For example, in the 1980s, the community supported the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) in Jalisco.
He then supported the conservative National Action Party (PAN), which won local elections in 1995.
The same happened in the national elections. Between 2000 and 2018, La Luz del Mundo supported federal governments.
The proximity to power did not only take place in Mexico. On May 19, 2019, La Luz del Mundo opened in El Salvador, a massive real estate development. The act had the support of thenPresidentelect Nayib Bukele.
“You don’t need this recognition, but we are honored to make and name you an illustrious son of the city of San Salvador,” Bukele told García.