“You are not a god. You raped me over and over again”: the criminal trail of Naasón Joaquín García in La Luz del Mundo

Naasón Joaquín García, leader of La Luz del Mundo, along with his lawyer Alan Jackson, at a hearing in Los Angeles on June 8. Carolyn Cole (AP)

"People think we could have said

, but they don't understand that saying

to the apostle it was impossible.”

Jane Doe 4, one of the five women who denounced Naasón Joaquín García, leader of the La Luz del Mundo church, took the stand to tell her truth for the first time.

Not even a week has passed since the apostle of Jesus Christ, as he is known among his followers, reached a last minute agreement with the California District Attorney to avoid spending the rest of his life in jail.

At this point, after three years since the largest case of sexual abuse against a Mexican religious was uncovered, it seemed that everything was written.

There would be no trial.

Mountains of evidence would not be shown against the pastor, who claims to have five million followers in 50 countries.

The guilty confession would make him answer only for three of the 19 charges against him (36 crimes originally) and would give him access to a reduced sentence: just over 16 years in prison.

Only the sentence of the judge remained to seal the controversial pact with the apostle.

Before that, the victims, silenced for years, would have one last chance to confront their aggressor and expose the abuses they suffered to the public.

“Naasón, or should I call you uncle?” Jane Doe 4 said through tears, at the beginning of her testimony, marked by explicit descriptions of episodes of sexual abuse.

“Or was I only supposed to call you uncle when you raped me?

You said it made you horny, do you still think it's sexy? "Insisted the accused's niece.

The young woman was only a fifteen-year-old when the reported abuses occurred, seven years ago.

Crimes 22 to 26 in the prosecution's accusation: two charges for rape, two charges for forcing a minor to perform oral sex and one more for extortion.

"You knew me from the day I was born, since I was a baby, you saw me grow up and you were supposed to protect me," she recounted, "but you chose to take advantage of my innocence and steal my virginity."

The official name of the organization is The Church of the Living God Column and Support of Truth, and Naasón Joaquín García is that “living god”.

He is not “just” a shepherd leading his flock to Christianity.

He is "the man of God," his "servant," his "representative on earth."

And in La Luz del Mundo, obedience or any opportunity to please the designs and desires of the apostle was "a blessing."

The case was built around five girls, almost all minors, who were chosen to form a service group to personally attend to Joaquín García.

A circle of women close to the leader handpicked them.

The minister, according to what is read in the judicial summary, wanted them "young" and "beautiful".

Those assistants or

, the three co-defendants in the case, taught girls to please him and forced them to do suggestive dances, take pictures in lingerie, give him fellatio and sleep with him.

Everything was covered under religious and sanctity precepts: they were told that what happened in the apostle's house stayed there and that it was their right to have several lovers, "like Jesus" or like "a king".

They were "his little angels", another complainant would refer during the last hearing.

Jane Doe 4, now a grown woman, went back to the time she was first recruited.

"I will never forget that while I was massaging your 'holy feet,' I saw another girl perform oral sex on you," she recalled.

"When I left the room, I cried and cried because I did not understand what was happening, you were my savior, the apostle," she added.

"How is it possible that this man, who is Jesus Christ on earth, is so disgusting?" Asked the complainant, whose identity she reserved for security reasons.

The apostle Naason did not act alone.

The girl told her with pain how she had to submit, forced by the assistants of the religious leader.

The

, as the recruiters are called in the case, were other women who also suffered abuse within the organization during their childhood, according to some of them after being arrested.

The machinery of child exploitation, according to the complaints, fed on victims who became victimizers and created chains of abuse that lasted for decades.

“When I tried to resist and said that this was wrong, that you were my uncle, they quoted the scriptures and told me that there was never any immorality in your actions, because you were not capable of sinning,” she said.

Naasón Joaquín García, at his sentencing hearing, on June 8. Carolyn Cole (AP)

"I had no way to escape, you raped me over and over again," she said distraught.

The accused never turned to look at her during the testimony.

He did not dare to look at any of the women who denounced him or her relatives.

He seemed to shrink as he sat in his chair, dressed in his orange jail uniform and stared off into space as he listened to the story translated by an interpreter.

“Naasón, here we are, look at us”, another of the Jane Does would say to him on another occasion, moments later.

“Coward”, she called him one more.

“Do you remember how you enjoyed choking me until I threw up?” Jane Doe 4 asked. “Remember the time you sodomized me and I cried and begged you to stop because you hurt me?” she continued.

“Do you remember how you and your accomplices laughed at me while I cried and screamed?

Do you remember how you ordered them to hold me down so that I wouldn't resist?” she claimed with gasps.

One by one the questions resounded in the Los Angeles court, in the same building where it was expected that there would be a five to six week trial to elucidate the truth, after three years of waiting.

"Do you remember how much blood there was and how you went on and on, more and more savagely?"

“Do you remember when you wanted me to bring you my little sister so you could rape her too?” the complainant questioned.

“I told you she was only 14 years old.

Do you remember how you told me that I should have brought it to you before her?”

It was not a relief, nothing seemed to give him peace.

“Do you remember the night you stole my virginity?

Do you remember how my

brought you a bloody sheet and said: 'Blood, sir, is the sign of your niece's innocence' and how you smiled and said that it was a blessing from God? ”, she asked him, once again .

Each sentence recounted a different episode of abuse: orgies with other minors, forced sex with in-laws, systematic abuse day and night.

“In case you forgot, I'm here to remind you,” challenged Jane Doe 4. “I could talk for hours and hours to help you remember all the sick things you made me do, all the things you did that I can never forget for the rest of my life," he said.

And soon after she described the confusion and pain of not knowing where to turn when your abuser is a god to everyone you know.

“I was terrified,” she recounted.

“I would have preferred to suffer the consequences of eternal damnation than to live another minute under your control,” she assured.

"You're disgusting, Naason," she told him, "you're not a god, you can't even be considered a man."

Raising your voice against Naasón Joaquín García resulted in "death threats", "public humiliation", "repudiation of the entire community".

Every day that has passed since his arrest in June 2019 at the Los Angeles airport, it has become clear that within the congregation there is no truce against “apostates”.

Faithful of the church have made it clear that they threaten people at will on social networks and in the streets.

It has been said by every person who left the cult who has been interviewed by the press.

"I have been called a liar, a whore, a traitor, a Judas who deserves to die in the most vile way," recalled Jane Doe 4. And yet, she decided to speak against her uncle under the promise that the Prosecutor's Office "would not agree" and that she would fall upon him “the full weight of the law”.

"I don't understand how he was offered a plea deal, there was so much evidence, there are five of us sitting in this court, countless victims outside, all with the same stories, the same traumas, the same villain," reproached the young woman. .

After negotiating with the defense 72 hours before the start of the trial, the Prosecutor's Office told the complainants that they had 15 minutes to reach their offices: the decision was irrevocable, there was no going back.

It did not matter that they had not been consulted if they agreed.

According to the FBI statements, there were images on Naasón Joaquin's electronic devices of child pornography, videos of his encounters with children, and testimonies were gathered from victims and people who held high positions in the organization.

“How come it wasn't enough?

How can this be called justice?

Isn't that what this court stands for?

This country?".

Jane Doe 4's questions shook the court again.

Naasón Joaquín García accepted two charges for forcing minors to perform oral sex on him and another for lewd acts against a minor.

He did not answer for any of the crimes reported by Jane Doe 4. No rape charges.

No extortion charge.

No charges for human trafficking.

No charge for child pornography.

And that was just one of about a dozen testimonies: mothers who asked what they had done wrong for their religious leader to abuse their daughters, brothers who asked that the agreement be scrapped to achieve justice, husbands who still fear for their lives of their wives and their families.

Complainants who claimed that the Prosecutor's Office turned its back on them.

The accused did not speak.

Outside, at the Hermosa Provincia temple in Guadalajara, the church's main headquarters in Mexico, thousands of people prayed for his exoneration.

They did not know that he had already confessed to the abuse.

The leadership of La Luz del Mundo had ordered them not to watch the news.

"Satan wants us to gossip and listen to what they say outside," is heard in a recording of a liturgy obtained by the

newspaper .

Faithful of La Luz del Mundo, outside the temple of the Beautiful Province, in Guadalajara (Mexico), on June 8. Francisco Guasco (EFE)

Most of the faithful do not know either that two of the other three defendants have already agreed with the Prosecutor's Office to obtain a reduced sentence.

They also ignore that the third accomplice is still considered a fugitive.

Jane Doe 4, in the middle of her testimony, showed a recording from the top of the church in which they said that Naason was "forced" to confess to see for the future of his membership.

The prosecutors just grimaced as they listened to the translation of the message.

"The apostle of Jesus Christ has had no choice but to accept with great pain that the agreement presented is the best way to protect the church," reads the first institutional statement from La Luz del Mundo since the confession was known.

They were silent for more than five days.

Judge Ronald S. Coen was brief before ratifying what seemed most likely: that Naasón Joaquín García was going to spend 16 years and eight months in jail, perhaps still in time to resume the management of his church in person.

Even behind bars, he remains in control.

But before doing so, the judge apologized to the complainants: "I'm sorry, my hands are tied."

He commented that after 38 years of experience, it never ceased to amaze him that so many abuses were committed in the name of religion.

“The lawyers do what they do”, he settled before the controversial justifications of the Prosecutor's Office after signing the pact.

"You are a sexual predator," he snapped at the accused.

Seven years of judicial investigation, three years of preliminary hearings, but only 16 years in prison,

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