The lawyers of the leader of the church La Luz del Mundo, Naasón Joaquín García, detained in the Central Men's Jail in Los Angeles, accused of multiple charges of sexual abuse of minors, asked the judge this Wednesday for more time to contact new witnesses during a preliminary hearing, which will further delay the formal start of the trial.
In a petition filed with the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center in Los Angeles, defense attorneys requested to interview 39 people named by one of the alleged victims.
Although the California prosecutor's office, which seeks to start the selection of the jury as soon as possible, considered the request unnecessary, the judge granted two months for the legal defenders of the so-called 'Apostle of Jesus Christ' by his followers to contact these possible witnesses.
The argument of the prosecutors this Wednesday was that the lawyers had access to the electronic devices of the five accusers, which are found together with other evidence of this case in a secret site that the authorities spoke to in the city of Commerce, in the southeast of the Angels.
The judge's decision was to schedule a new hearing for April 12, although a specific date was not given for the start of the trial, which has been postponed since September last year.