▲ Naasón Joaquín García (wearing glasses), leader of La Luz del Mundo Church, at the time his sentence was issued, yesterday, in a court in Los Angeles, California.Photo App
Reuters
Newspaper La Jornada
Thursday June 9, 2022, p. 18
The Angels. The leader of an evangelical church based in Mexico was sentenced Wednesday by a court in Los Angeles, California, to 16 years and eight months in prison for sexually abusing three girls.
Naasón Joaquín García, leader and self-styled Apostle of Jesus Christ of the Guadalajara-based La Luz del Mundo Church, pleaded guilty last week to two counts of forced oral intercourse with minors and a lewd act with a child.
Several of the accusers, each identified in court only as Jane Doe, appeared in court Wednesday to charge that the plea deal between California prosecutors and the 53-year-old religious leader was too lenient and that they were not consulted.
In exchange for admitting responsibility, prosecutors dropped most of the charges Joaquin faced, including the most serious ones, in a case that originally stemmed from the accusations of five girls.
Joaquin pleaded guilty three days before his trial to 23 sex crimes against minors, including multiple counts of rape, human trafficking conspiracy and child pornography.
Once the sentence was handed down, La Luz del Mundo said that since his arrest in 2019, Joaquín has been subjected to a process in which suppressed, hid and altered evidence
and that he opted for the plea deal because it is the best way
to protect the church and his family and that he will stand as their leader.
