After Repeatedly Proclaiming His Innocence and Claiming He Was ‘Framed,’ Megachurch Pastor Pleads Guilty to Child Sexual Abuse. Naasón Joaquín García, 53, admitted to two counts of forcible oral copulation involving minors and one count of a lewd act upon a child who was 15 in Los Angeles Superior Court on Friday.
As Law&Crime previously reported, Garcia styles himself as the “apostle” of the Church of the Living God, Pillar, and Ground of the Truth, The Light of the World, which claims membership in excess of five million throughout the United States and dozens of other countries. He was indicted by the California Attorney General’s Office on sex trafficking charges and arrested in the summer of 2019.
The church is based in Mexico. While initially held on $50 million bail, his attorneys claimed — in a bid to lessen the amount — their client was “framed” by women connected to “disgruntled former church members” and that he was actually “the victim of a concerted conspiracy to frame and extort him.”
Those efforts did not yield the desired results. The defendant is currently jailed on $90 million bail. “Today’s conviction sends a clear message that sexual exploitation is never acceptable in California,” Attorney General Rob Bonta (D) said in a statement. “We will hold you accountable if you break the law. As the leader of La Luz del Mundo, Naasón Joaquín García used his power to take advantage of children. He relied on those around him to groom congregants for the purposes of sexual assault.”
The guilty plea comes at the end of a long investigation into Garcia, the leader of the fundamentalist Christian church founded by his grandfather in 1926, which now boasts 5 million followers globally. The church advocates a very conservative lifestyle, with male members often wearing suits and women in non-revealing dresses and hair veils.
Garcia took over as the “apostle” after his father, Samuel Joaquin Flores, died in 2014. Flores was also the subject of child sex abuse allegations in 1997, but no criminal charges were filed. One of Garcia’s co-defendants, Alondra Ocampo, pleaded guilty to three felony counts of contact with a minor for purposes of committing a sexual offense and one count of forcible sexual penetration in 2020.
She said she had been sexually abused by Flores. In addition to Garcia and Ocampo, co-defendant Susana Medina Oaxaca also pleaded guilty to a charge of assault likely to cause great bodily harm on Friday.
Attorney Pat Carey said 27-year-old Oaxaca had faced up to 10 years in prison if convicted at trial and the guilty plea was in her best interests. “It was also a relief to put a 3-year process behind her rather than endure a lengthy jury trial, 98% of which involved evidence that had nothing to do with her,” he wrote in an email to The Associated Press.
