Mexican Megachurch Leader To Be Sentenced In U.S. Over Child Sex Abuse

The head of a Mexico-based evangelical megachurch that claims about 5 million followers worldwide is to be sentenced in a Los Angeles courtroom on Wednesday after his conviction on felony charges of sexually abusing three children.

Naason Joaquin Garcia, leader and self-styled apostle of the Guadalajara-based church La Luz del Mundo (Light of the World), pleaded guilty last Friday to child sex abuse, three days before he had been scheduled to go on trial for rape, human trafficking and child pornography charges.

As part of the plea deal, prosecutors for the California attorney general's office dismissed the most serious charges Garcia faced and recommended he be sentenced to 16 years and eight months in prison. The Los Angeles Superior Court judge presiding over the case could impose a harsher term.

Four of Garcia's accusers, teenage girls each identified in court only as Jane Doe, decried the plea deal as too lenient in victim-impact statements they made to the packed courtroom during the first three hours of Wednesday's sentencing hearing.

All voiced indignation at not being consulted by prosecutors in the plea negotiations after coming forward to testify against Garcia, 53, who sat with his back to the girls as each addressed their anguish at him in tearful statements.

"We looked up to you, you were our god, and you betrayed us. You are no more than a predator and an abuser," Jane Doe No. 3 said as she choked back sobs.

Jane Doe No. 4, who identified herself as Garcia's niece, said, "Naason and this church have ruined my life."

Another of the accusers told the court Garcia had sent a message to church members professing his innocence but saying he was accepting the deal with prosecutors because he believed he could not get a fair trial.

"Your honor, this abuser thinks your courtroom is a joke. Even after he accepted the plea deal, he's sending messages to the church that he's innocent," the accuser said.

Garcia's conviction caps an investigation that began in 2018 leading to his arrest the following year at Los Angeles International Airport with a co-defendant, Susana Medina Oaxaca, who pleaded guilty last Friday to a charge of assault likely to cause great bodily harm.

A second co-defendant, Alondra Ocampo, also arrested in 2019, pleaded guilty in 2020 to three felony counts of contact with a minor for purposes of committing a sexual offense and one count of forcible sexual penetration.

Garcia pleaded guilty to two counts of forcible oral copulation involving minors and one count of a lewd act upon a child. The charges stem from abuse of three underage victims, prosecutors said.

Garcia, Oaxaca and Ocampo had previously faced 36 felony offenses in all, including charges of rape, human trafficking and child pornography involving a total of five alleged victims. The majority of those counts were dropped in return for the defendants' guilty pleas.

A fourth individual charged in the investigation, Azalea Rangel Melendez, remains at large, prosecutors said.

La Luz del Mundo is the largest evangelical church in Mexico, dating to the 1920s, with branches in 50 countries and boasting about 5 million members.

When a Los Angeles judge ordered Garcia to stand trial in August 2020, the church issued a statement defending their leader as wrongly accused, saying the charges against him stemmed from "unsubstantiated anonymous allegations" and "blatant hearsay."

A La Luz del Mundo spokesman reached by Reuters on Friday said the church would have a statement on the latest developments later in the day, but no such statement was ever released.

(The story corrects spelling of defendant's first name to Naason instead of Nasson in paragraphs 2 and 7.)