A judge from the Superior Court of Los Angeles County, California, ordered this Monday that the trial of Naasón Joaquín García, leader of the evangelical church La Luz del Mundo, who faces multiple charges of sexual abuse of minors and child pornography, begin the next September 27.
Preparation hearings will begin on September 17, Judge Ronald S. Coen also determined. By then, Naasón Joaquín will have been detained in the Jail for Men in downtown Los Angeles for more than two years. The evangelical pastor twice pleaded not guilty.
Coen made the decision to start this criminal process in five months due to the requests of the defense attorneys, who requested time to prepare their legal strategy and for other pending cases.
It is the second time that a date has been set for the trial of Joaquín García. It had been set for November 12, 2020, but the case dragged on and was finally dropped last April due to a formality. The Prosecutor's Office had to present it again.
Naasón Joaquín has been detained in a Los Angeles jail since June 3, 2019. He faces 19 criminal charges, including sexual abuse of minors, rape, child pornography and human trafficking.
At the end of March, a judge denied the defense of the Mexican pastor to review more than 37,000 written messages stored on the cell phones of the five women who accuse him of sexual abuse.
According to attorney Caleb Mason, part of the team defending the pastor, there are 37,460 text messages, emails and other communications on the cell phones of the five accusers. But the magistrate denied that they were reviewed, considering that they should protect the alleged victims.
The start of Naasón Joaquín's trial has been detained for several months due to the strategy of his lawyers who have requested to review each of the charges against their client and the evidence presented by prosecutors. Added to this are the restrictions imposed by the court due to the pandemic.
On the dock of the accused will also be the assistant to the leader of La Luz del Mundo, Susana Medina Oaxaca, a young woman from San Diego, California. She was traveling on a private jet with Naasón Joaquín when they were both detained at the Los Angeles airport.
Investigators have already anticipated what is to come in the hearings: they testified in court that they found on Naasón Joaquín's iPhone the video of an orgy with a minor, as well as messages in which the pastor asked that the girls be given drugs so that they would be "more accommodating" and not know that they had been abused.
They also described how they recruited the girls in temples in Los Angeles, alleged erotic videos that would have been recorded in motels and offices in Southern California, and even a "sexual demonstration" in a Beverly Hills hotel.
One of the investigators stated last August that he found more than 200 images of alleged child pornography, including a series of videos in which Naasón Joaquín appears several times recording one of his assistants while raping a minor, identified as' John Doe 2 '.
Another agent described, for his part, the interviews he had with four alleged victims, including two women who were minors when the events occurred. He said that they are "traumatized."
The rules under which the trial will take place are as follows: a person from the public and a reporter will enter the court due to the pandemic, and the identity of the witnesses will be protected. Judge Coen warned that it will be inevitable to show images of alleged "child pornography" to the jury.
The so-called ‘Apostle of Jesus Christ’, who prosecutors say used three women to recruit girls who performed scantily-clad provocative dances and ended up being sexually abused, will come to his trial with fewer charges.
Judge Stephen Marcus reviewed the motions filed by the defense and dropped four counts of extortion and aggravated bodily harm on two counts of forcible rape of a minor and illegal sexual relations.
But he had 19 felony crimes left, and if a jury finds there is enough evidence to find him guilty, Joaquín García would face a sentence of several years behind bars.
The sentencing date for co-defendant Alondra Ocampo, who pleaded guilty to four counts and is expected to testify against Naasón Joaquín, is still pending. Her lawyer Fred Thiagarajah told Univision Noticias that he expects her to be convicted in October.