La Luz del Mundo apostle Naasón Joaquín García was arrested in 2019, but the archives of the Los Angeles Times prove it’s clear that accusations against the church are nothing new. Back in 1998, women — including 31-year-old Amparo Aguilar — came forward to say that they were children when they were sexually abused by Joaquin Garcia’s father, Samuel Joaquín (pictured).
He was the head of the church at the time Aguilar said she was escorted into his bedroom and raped, before being told “not to say anything, because if I did, God would punish me.” Hers was one of four accusations, and although they were reported to authorities, it was ultimately ruled that there wasn’t enough evidence to charge and prosecute.
There were other accusations, too: Moises Padilla accused Joaquín of assaulting him as a teenager, and after he broke from the church, he says he was kidnapped, beaten, and stabbed 57 times as a warning to him and others. Among critics who campaigned on behalf of victims was Jorge Erdely, an anti-cult activist and Oxford-educated doctor of theology. LDM accused him of attempting to profit off the charges, but Erdely denied the charges and, in 2002, explained to The Guardian why Mexico was the perfect place for a church like LDM to flourish: an iffy judicial structure and record on human rights coupled with “the profound loyalty people feel to an institution” created a perfect storm.
