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“It is irreparable damage”: the first to report sexual abuse of a leader of La Luz del Mundo demands justice

2022-06-06T23:58:30.030Z


Moisés Padilla breaks two decades of silence to help the faithful of the church: "They are not sectarian, they are simply deceived." He denounces the complicity of the Mexican political power with the church. "I want them to be free," he adds.


By Juan Cooper and Pamela Subizar

When Moisés Padilla explains that he suffered sexual abuse as a minor by the former leader of the church of La Luz del Mundo, Samuel Joaquín Flores, he says that he felt disgust and anger, and that he felt destroyed on a spiritual level.

He was unable to tell his story until 1998, when he was already over 30 years old, and decided to go on Mexican television to publicly say something that was already an open secret, he assures, at the top of the church and among the faithful:

a system of abuse within that religious community.

Padilla bore the burden of being the first to denounce the self-proclaimed "Apostle of Jesus Christ," and shortly after that interview he

was kidnapped and tortured.

He received 68 stab wounds

.

He survived and traveled to California, United States, to start a new life.

Then he completely disappeared from the public sphere.

Until now.

"In a way, I promoted the legend that I was dead," he now says in an exclusive interview with Noticias Telemundo Investiga, the first he has given after settling in the United States and disappearing for more than two decades.

“The FBI told me that it recommended that I change my first and last name, and all the relationship with a past so that I could have a freer life.

And that's what I did,” she explains. 

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Samuel Joaquín Flores died in 2014 without being tried, but Padilla returns to give his testimony, to denounce, he says, the corrupt system at the top of La Luz del Mundo, in the same days that his son and heir at the head of the church , Naasón Joaquín García, faces a judicial process in which he has already pleaded guilty.

He will be sentenced this Wednesday in a Los Angeles court after accepting three charges of sexual abuse of minors, in a plea agreement with the California attorney general's office that gives him 16 years in prison for now.

But Padilla maintains that religious leaders who abuse minors should serve life sentences.

"They should be sentenced for life, because that is irreparable damage," he points out and recounts the post-traumatic stress he suffered throughout his life, since he suffered the reported abuse.

"I have tried to handle it with satire, with mockery of that situation, but one only knows the pain that you carry until you die," he indicates.

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Padilla grew up in the Hermosa Provincia neighborhood in Guadalajara, Mexico, where La Luz del Mundo is based.

"I was born in the church," he says, and relates that he played with the children of Samuel Joaquín Flores.

In 1982, when he was 16 years old, he was invited on a trip with Joaquín Flores to Puerto Vallarta. 

"I never imagined the plans Samuel had for me," he says.

Padilla denounces that he was taken with an excuse in a truck to the outskirts of where they were staying and there Samuel Joaquín Flores harassed him more and more.

"He approached and put his hand inside the zipper of my pants," he says, it was the beginning of the violation. 

Padilla was interviewed by a Mexican television channel to tell what had happened on that trip, that was the only interview he had given before a media outlet until today, when he decided to tell his story to Noticias Telemundo Investiga.

Article in the newspaper El Sol de México in February 1998. Moisés Padilla Archive

Up to 68 stabs

With photographic memory, Padilla remembers the day he claims to have been kidnapped and stabbed, in 1997, on the orders, he says, of the then former religious leader he was accusing. 

A group of men, which he describes as “policemen” or judicial officers, took him out of the city.

"They blindfold me, take off all my clothes, take off my handcuffs... they tie me up with a rope, they tie my feet, and being totally naked they prepare for torture," he says. 

The different medical reports made have found more than 50 stab marks on his body, even up to 68, according to one of the documents to which he had access.

He was hit in the neck, back and sides.

But he managed to survive what he remembers as a spiritual experience in which he felt that he left his body and saw the "scene" of torture and was able to recognize one of the people: it was Naason Joaquín García, he says. .

Moisés Padilla after being stabbed in 1997. Moisés Padilla Archive

Padilla thought that he would not survive, but he was not afraid.

"

What better way to die, for someone, to die for the children who were abused so that justice can be done

," he says he thought.

Later, he recounts that a message came to him that he should continue, and that he died and came back to life.

"I was a guy who didn't believe in miracles, I was always a studious person, I really liked books," he says, "but I experienced a miracle from God there."

no justice

The complaints filed by Padilla and other faithful against the father of Naason Joaquín García in 1997 and 1998 in different Mexican prosecutors never prospered.

Padilla points out that this is due to political reasons and describes connections between the church and the rulers from the time it was founded.

"The church is untouchable," he says.

“Whenever a candidate was campaigning, he went to the house of Samuel [Joaquín Flores] to receive the blessing.

Thus, Samuel provided them with what the politician wanted, which was votes, and Samuel received all the favors,” he explains.

Padilla indicates that this power is still in force and gives as an example that investigators in California have asked the Mexican authorities to open a folder to investigate and find the possible victims in Guadalajara for three years, without this happening.

"I have the documents that we presented our complaint, the date, the time, I have the evidence that the Government of Mexico never did anything," he says.

"I want them to be free"

Padilla breaks two decades of silence to help the faithful of the church: "They are not sectarian, they are simply deceived."

"I want them to be free," he adds.

Source: telemundo

All news articles on 2022-06-06

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