FILE PHOTO: Naason Joaquin Garcia, the head of a Mexican-based church estimated to have more than 1 million followers worldwide, appears in court in Los Angels, California, U.S., June 10, 2019. REUTERS/Ringo Chiu/File Photo
NEW YORK (Reuters) -The leader of a Mexico-basedmegachurch with 5 million followers worldwide has been hit with federal sex trafficking charges in the United States, prosecutors said on Wednesday.
Naason Joaquin Garcia, the self-styled apostle of the Guadalajara-based evangelical church La Luz del Mundo (Light of the World), was taken into federal custody in California, where he is serving a sentence of 16 years and eight months in prison after pleading guilty in 2022 to state-level charges of sexually abusing three girls.
In a separate indictment unsealed on Wednesday, the Manhattan U.S. Attorney's Office said Joaquin, 56, for decades trafficked women and girls for sex, produced child pornography, and destroyed evidence of his crimes. He faces six counts, including racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking, and could face life in prison if convicted.
Five alleged co-conspirators, including Joaquin's mother, were also charged.
"They exploited the faith of their followers to prey upon them," U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton said in a statement.
Neither Joaquin's lawyers nor La Luz del Mundo immediately responded to requests for comment.
La Luz del Mundo was founded by Joaquin's grandfather, Eusebio Joaquin Gonzalez, in 1926 and was later led by Joaquin's father, Samuel Joaquin Flores. All three men took advantage of their positions of power to rape girls and young women, often by telling them they could earn a special "blessing" by engaging in sexual activity with them, prosecutors said.
Joaquin's father and grandfather are both dead.
The younger Joaquin dissuaded congregants from reporting his abuse to law enforcement by discouraging them from associating with outsiders and teaching them from birth that they would be eternally damned if they questioned him, prosecutors said.
Many of Joaquin's accusers decried his state-level plea deal with the California Attorney General's Office as too lenient.
(Reporting by Luc Cohen in New YorkEditing by Rod Nickel)
