Naasón Joaquín García, the leader of the La Luz del Mundo megachurch, has been sentenced in a Los Angeles court to 16 years and eight months in prison. García, 53, pleaded guilty last week to three counts of sexually abusing girls from his congregation.
His plea deal means his sentence is considerably shorter than the life imprisonment he could have faced had he been found guilty in a trial. To his followers, Naasón Joaquín García is known as “the Apostle”. His church shared a statement [in Spanish] on Twitter in which it expresses its continued “support for the Apostle of Jesus Christ” and praised his “integrity, his conduct and his work”.
The statement alleges that that evidence García had been fabricated and that he accepted the plea deal “as the best way to protect the church and his family”.
Credit: bbc.com
