La Luz del Mundo leader Naasón Joaquín García unexpectedly pleaded guilty this Friday (3). He will be sentenced next week.
Mexican Naasón Joaquín García, leader of the La Luz del Mundo church, admitted this Friday (3/6) to three counts of sexual misconduct against minors, to which he responded in American justice, informed California Attorney General Rob Bonta, in a statement.
The trial against García was supposed to begin Monday, but unexpectedly came to an agreement with the authorities, pleaded guilty and will receive a sentence next Wednesday morning.
In total, Garcia faces 19 charges, including rape, possession of child pornography, and human trafficking. The offenses would have been committed between June 2015 and June 2019
About three years ago, García, the leader of one of the world’s largest evangelical churches, was arrested at the airport in Los Angeles. His trial was supposed to begin in 2020, but was delayed due to the coronavirus pandemic and the various strategies his defense has adopted.
Below we detail the process, which should still resonate a lot.
1. Who is the accused?
Joaquín García has been the international president of the La Luz del Mundo church since 2014.
He took office after the death of his father, Samuel Joaquín Flores, who had been responsible for leading the congregation for 50 years. He also took over the role from his pioneer, Eusebio Joaquín González, who founded the church in Guadalajara, Mexico, on April 6, 1926.
Little is known about the accused other than the story he told on official portals and community vehicles.
For example, it is known that he started his career as a missionary at the age of 14 for the church in the popular neighborhoods of Guadalajara, where the main headquarters is still located.
He was soon named in charge of the movement in the United States and later traveled to Europe, Asia and Oceania.
When he assumed the presidency of the church, he created a communication structure on social networks that allowed him to increase the number of the faithful, according to the movement’s official page.
At the same time, according to the California Attorney General, between 2015 and 2018, Joaquín García and some of his collaborators would use this structure to commit sexual abuse and other crimes that he and the congregation he rules denied.
With these charges, he was arrested on June 3, 2019, when they arrived in a private jet at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) with one of his assistants, Susana Medina Oaxaca.
And for this he will be tried in the Supreme Court of the city of California.
2. What is he accused of?
“Crimes like those alleged in this complaint have no place in our society,” said then-California Attorney General Xavier Becerra—the current Secretary of Health and Human Services—while announcing his arrest.
At that moment, there were 25 accusations against the so-called “apostle of Jesus Christ.”
But the number has fluctuated in recent years and there are now 19, including allegations of child sexual abuse, rape, possession of child pornography, and human trafficking.
The alleged crimes were to take place in Los Angeles between June 2015 and June 2019.
The criminal case is based on the testimonies of five anonymous women, videos and conversations made on their phone apps.
The prosecution, for example, claimed that three unidentified children Jane Doe 1,2 and 3They were invited to be part of a “special” group that met with the church leader every time he visited Los Angeles.
They were then invited to dance, allegedly scantily dressed, attended orgies and posed nude in hotels and other venues, according to the indictment.
Young American Sochil Martin, who discovered the church’s sex scandal after serving as a “recruitment officer” and with whom he was with, said: “Naason lived in a porn movie 90% of the time. He had the money and power, so he could have made it possible.” BBC News Mundo (BBC Spanish service) spoke in April 2020.
Alongside the charges against Joaquin Garcia, the amount of bail placed against him has changed and is now set at $90 million, the highest amount in California history.
Joaquín García awaits his sentence at the Los Angeles County Men’s Central Prison.
3. what already said and his defense
Joaquín García denied all charges, repeating the words dictated by his lawyer Alan Jackson at the hearing before Judge Ronald S. Coen on September 19, 2019.
The church called La Luz del Mundo published the church titled “How many humiliations, how many ridicule, how many crimes, how many provocations! Representatives in December 2020
His defense argued from the very beginning that the prosecution manipulated the evidence to make the defendants commit acts that had nothing to do with it.
Requesting filing? and Judge Stephen A. Marcus, who were dismissed on May 2, lawyers argued that the prosecution made it difficult to access the material on which the charge was based, and that this could contain evidence in favor of the accused.
The defense argues that some whistleblowers lured his client into a “money trap” and that prosecutors distorted conversations with the defendants “to escalate the case.”
The church he is already leading compares his situation to Jesus Christ and finds this “unjust”.
“Once the process is resolved, we are confident that what will remain constant for us will be obvious: the honesty and dignity of a man we know with whom we have to work closely in ministerial work (…)”, Elíezer Gutiérrez, the media minister of the Pastor Church, told BBC News Mundo.
With regard to the accusations made by Sochil Martin, the church claims that he is purely for-profit.
“Sochil has filed a civil complaint with a 100% economic objective,” Abner Nicolás Menchaca Tristán, pastor and deputy public relations director of the church of La Luz del Mundo, told BBC News.
They also deny the accusations against the congregation: including the act of “persuading” women to abuse women, including minors.
“This kind of statement, besides being unrealistic, hurts a lot of people like me, and my brothers and sisters who are here and we continue to come to church today, working to be better,” spokesperson Eliezer said. Gutierrez. During an interview with BBC News Mundo at the main temple of La Luz del Mundo in Los Angeles.
Church representatives condemned the attacks on their temples and members as a result of the lawsuit.
4. Who are the other defendants?
Susana Medina Oaxaca, Alondra Ocampo and Azalea Rangel Meléndez, who were arrested with Joaquín García at the Los Angeles airport in 2019, are co-defendants in the case.
Ocampo, 39, an American, pleaded not guilty to four charges in October 2020: three for a sexual offense with a minor and one for having had sexual intercourse with a minor.
Neither his lawyer, Fred Thiagarajah, nor the attorney general’s office have disclosed Ocampo’s pleadings or whether he will testify at Joaquín García’s trial.
Her sentence will be heard on October 12, and she is currently held without bail at Lynwood Women’s Prison in Los Angeles.
“He admitted his guilt. The ambassador pleaded not guilty. The behavior is attributed to the person who did it,” Father Abner Nicolás Menchaca Tristán told BBC News Mundo.
“It will be the law that will determine whether this is a possible strategy to shorten the sentence for him, because punishment is individual,” he added.
Oaxaca was released on bail, pleading not guilty.
And Azalea Rangel is wanted. She was raped twice and forced oral sex against an adult woman in the congregation.
5. How powerful is the church of La Luz del Mundo?
While the trial is still pending, Garcia remains the international president of the church of La Luz del Mundo, a congregation whose website claims to be located in 58 countries and has at least 5,000 believers.
Three weeks before his arrest, Garcia was honored on his 50th birthday. The event took place at the Palacio de Bellas Artes, the pinnacle of cultural finesse in Mexico, and was recognized by at least 35 lawmakers.
When the event was publicized and became a scandal, the church insisted that it was not a religious ceremony and claimed it was a cultural act.
During a morning session that week, Culture Minister Alejandra Frausto confirmed that it was “a concert as planned” and Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador called for tolerance.
Returning to the topic after the news of the arrest, the president said, “Regardless of Belas Artes, the competent authority did not know about what was learned yesterday, and every person, citizen or association can show their own margin of error”.
Experts like Elio Masferrer, a researcher at the National School of Anthropology and History (ENAH), assure that the religious group is always close to power.
For example, in the 1980s the congregation supported the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) in Jalisco.
He later supported the conservative National Action Party (PAN), which won the 1995 local elections.
The same thing happened in the national elections. Between 2000 and 2018, La Luz del Mundo supported federal governments.
Proximity to power didn’t just happen in Mexico. On May 19, 2019, La Luz del Mundo opened in El Salvador, a major real estate development. The action received the support of the then elected president, Nayib Bukele.
“You don’t need this recognition, but it’s an honor for us to call you a famous son of the city of San Salvador,” Bukele told García.
source: Noticias
[author_name]
