Speaker 1: Before we jump in, we must warn you this episode
Speaker 1: contains explicit content, such as sexual abuse that may be
Speaker 1: disturbing to some people. Listener discretion is advised. Also, if
Speaker 1: this is the first time you're listening to Sacred Scandal,
Speaker 1: everything will make a lot more sense if you start
Speaker 1: with episode one. It's June fourth, twenty nineteen, and California
Speaker 1: Attorney General Javirvescera is beaming behind his high podium in
Speaker 1: a tailored gray suit. He called a press conference to
Speaker 1: announce a major sting, the high level arrest of mega
Speaker 1: church leader Nassan jo Quing Garcia and two of his
Speaker 1: thrick defendants.
Speaker 2: These four defendants are presumed innocent unlasted until proven guilty,
Speaker 2: but make no mistake, we are going to act vigorously
Speaker 2: to prosecute these individuals and bring this case to.
Speaker 1: A close to his right stance. An American flag and
Speaker 1: a huge poster showing the mockshots of Nasson and his
Speaker 1: two groomers, Alondre Campo and Susanna Medinawahaka. The picture at
Speaker 1: the very bottom is sunny smiling archival photo of still
Speaker 1: at large Asaljell makes for a stark contrast.
Speaker 3: As you can see this has become a case that
Speaker 3: goes far beyond one individual, one clergy member, one victim.
Speaker 3: If you are a survivor of abuse in this particular case,
Speaker 3: or you have information about the misconduct of anyone involved
Speaker 3: in this case, we want to hear from you. We
Speaker 3: want you to report any incident that you're aware of.
Speaker 3: You deserve justice and we want to help you pursue it.
Speaker 3: We are asking to please come forward and share what
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 1: The temporary lifting of the statue of limitations for sexual
Speaker 1: abuse in California opened a window for anyone to bring
Speaker 1: forth anonymous complaints to the Age's office, no matter when
Speaker 1: the crimes were committed. But that doesn't mean a thing
Speaker 1: if actual survivors aren't willing to speak up before a jury.
Speaker 1: So the Attorney General's office made it easier for victims
Speaker 1: to get in touch. Ag Besra points to another poster.
Speaker 1: This one is playing in bright colors, a website and
Speaker 1: a telephone number for survivors to call with information.
Speaker 4: We hope to prosecute this to the end, but we
Speaker 4: were able to succeed in finding victims who came forward
Speaker 4: because we guaranteed them confidentiality and we hope now we'll
Speaker 4: be able to confidently assure them success in this prosecution.
Speaker 1: The hotline worked the Five Brave Women whom we met
Speaker 1: last episode. The Jane Doees came forward and agreed to
Speaker 1: help Agibecera prosecute Nason. With the evidence and testimony they provided,
Speaker 1: the State of California was able to bring multiple criminal
Speaker 1: accounts against Nason, Ka gin Garcia and his accomplices, many
Speaker 1: of which would carry life sentences for each counter. There
Speaker 1: was abundant evidence of guilt between a Song, Susanna, and
Speaker 1: Alondras confiscated devices, there were over one hundred thousand digital images, lost,
Speaker 1: text messages, emails, and phone calls, many of them depicting
Speaker 1: underage children, most of them belonging to his own flock.
Speaker 1: There were also things like discarded soiled underwear provided by
Speaker 1: his victims, recorded conversations, diaries, letters, tokens, and the searing
Speaker 1: testimonies from the five main witnesses. A case with this
Speaker 1: much evidence and five credible witnesses ready to testify it
Speaker 1: before a jury should have been a slum dunk for
Speaker 1: the prosecution. Even Nason's lawyer, Alan Jackson, who was well
Speaker 1: known for defending celebrity abusers like Kevin Spacey and Harvey
Speaker 1: Weinstein wasn't feeling too confident about his client's chances. In
Speaker 1: a letter to Judge Cohen, he mentions that his client
Speaker 1: could very well end up spending the rest of his
Speaker 1: life in prison. But instead of life in prison, Nason
Speaker 1: jua Qing Garcia got a PLI deal. In exchange for
Speaker 1: taking it. He will spend a little over sixteen years
Speaker 1: in prison and a lifetime of sex offender status. And
Speaker 1: that's it compared to the sentences other cult leaders who
Speaker 1: sexually abuse their followers have received. It's basically a slap
Speaker 1: on the wrist. So what went wrong? Was the evidence
Speaker 1: stampered with? Were the witnesses called lying? No, it was
Speaker 1: something much more stupid. In this episode, we discuss how
Speaker 1: prosecutorial miscond allow the church to spin the plea deal
Speaker 1: as a win, and what chances of justice are left
Speaker 1: for the victims of la Udelmundo and Roberta Garsandi is
Speaker 1: Acred Scandal, Season two, episode eleven, A Deal with the Devil.
Speaker 1: One of the first things the church did after Nason
Speaker 1: was arrested was mount apr campaign in his defense. It
Speaker 1: when something like this Nason is innocent, The women accusing
Speaker 1: him are greedy liars controlled by the devil, and the
Speaker 1: congregation should stop watching the news or using the internet
Speaker 1: because nothing they see there can be trusted. In fact,
Speaker 1: it's best for church members to get their information directly
Speaker 1: from ledn ministers or trusted leaders.
Speaker 5: When he was first arrested, I didn't believe, you know,
Speaker 5: he had committed the crimes that he was being charged with.
Speaker 1: That's Nellie Aguilar, a long time prosecutor turned criminal defense
Speaker 1: lawyer living in Fresno, California, and a former member of
Speaker 1: La Lous del Mundo. At the time of nason'ce arrest,
Speaker 1: she was still a member of the church and even
Speaker 1: did some legal work for them. That's how she met
Speaker 1: the apostle.
Speaker 5: He was always very respectful with me. He was very kind,
Speaker 5: So I didn't believe when these charges were filed.
Speaker 1: Nelly was so convinced of Nasson's innocence that she volunteered
Speaker 1: to set up his bail. But little by little Nellie
Speaker 1: noticed something was off.
Speaker 5: Once I started hearing arguments from his lawyers. Once I
Speaker 5: started hearing different aspects of the details, then I started thinking, O,
Speaker 5: wait a minute, no, there's something there.
Speaker 1: As an attorney, Nelly knew how the low and criminal
Speaker 1: defense trials worked, and she noticed that what the church
Speaker 1: was saying didn't really add.
Speaker 5: Up, especially because it was still kind of going to
Speaker 5: church on Sundays and hearing what the leadership was telling
Speaker 5: the ministers to say about the case. So that wasn't
Speaker 5: driving with me.
Speaker 1: Early on in this case, Nasson's defense filed an appeal
Speaker 1: to dismiss all charges on a technicality and one.
Speaker 5: So they made it sound like it was this big victory,
Speaker 5: so people were expecting him to get out, But.
Speaker 1: Nelly knew Nason was not going to get out of anything.
Speaker 5: Because the prosecution was going to refile the case as
Speaker 5: soon as it was dismissed.
Speaker 1: After a couple of the defenses other appeals were rejected
Speaker 1: as groundless, the church tried to spin the facts.
Speaker 5: The leadership tells the members he's being set up, everybody's
Speaker 5: being bought.
Speaker 1: LDM told their members that each and every level of
Speaker 1: the American judicial system had been bribed by enemies of
Speaker 1: the church, and that Nasson was being set up. But
Speaker 1: Nelly knows that's just not how the California court system operates.
Speaker 5: If you really look at the number of judges that
Speaker 5: saw this case in the Superior Court in LA there
Speaker 5: was at least six judges at various stages who saw
Speaker 5: this case and did not release him. There was multiple
Speaker 5: judges at the appellate level who saw the multiple appeals,
Speaker 5: and then there were the judges of the Supreme Court.
Speaker 1: The church also told his followers that the video evidence
Speaker 1: in the trial was created by deep fakes, and Isa
Speaker 1: Flows remembers the church priming its members to these leave
Speaker 1: the video and photographic evidence by teaching its congregation how
Speaker 1: to face tune up worked.
Speaker 6: They brought down the projector screen and they showed us
Speaker 6: a video about how people use this deep face app
Speaker 6: to put people in videos or change their faces and
Speaker 6: make it look like they're talking and stuff like that.
Speaker 6: And I was like, well, that's weird. Why would they
Speaker 6: show us that. That's crazy.
Speaker 1: Elisa and the rest of the believers had no idea
Speaker 1: what Nason was actually charged with. Nobody ever told them,
Speaker 1: but Nellie knew that if the videos were actually deep fakes,
Speaker 1: Nason's lawyers would bring that up to the judge and
Speaker 1: throw the prosecution's case.
Speaker 5: Nathan had like the best attorneys in the US. He
Speaker 5: had the best law firm, and they had the best experts.
Speaker 5: They had a forensic expert from Florida that they flew
Speaker 5: to California to look at the evidence. Had they found
Speaker 5: an inkling of the videos, the photographs being doctored, being fake,
Speaker 5: being manipulated anyway, they would have not hesitated to follow
Speaker 5: emotion excluding those, but they never did.
Speaker 1: As time passed and news of the hearing spread, it
Speaker 1: became more difficult for LALM to fully control what its
Speaker 1: congregation was seeing and hearing, So the church started telling
Speaker 1: its members that what Naissan's defense lawyers acknowledged as fact
Speaker 1: before the court might not be what actually happened.
Speaker 5: You cannot as an officer of the court, as an attorney,
Speaker 5: you cannot tell a lie to the judge for strategy purposes.
Speaker 1: For instance, Nason's lawyers may have argued that the apostles
Speaker 1: did have sex with these women, but that it was
Speaker 1: totally consensual. So the church told its congregation that even
Speaker 1: though that's what the lawyers said, it was a strategic
Speaker 1: lie because the Apostle of God would never have sexual
Speaker 1: relations with this of women or with underage children, and
Speaker 1: that the videos were deep fakes planted there by some
Speaker 1: of the alleged victims out of pure evil.
Speaker 5: The church is being told, well, you know strategy, It's okay,
Speaker 5: they're lying to get them out. That's not true. You
Speaker 5: can't do that as a lawyer. So all of those
Speaker 5: red flags started kindly up for me.
Speaker 1: A year after Nason was arrested, the church's annual Santa
Speaker 1: Sna celebration was much less grandiose than in previous years,
Speaker 1: not just because it was the middle of the COVID
Speaker 1: nineteen pandemic, but also because their leader, Nason was still
Speaker 1: behind bars. To everyone's surprise and awe, at the Grand
Speaker 1: Temple in Armossa Provincia, the leaders played its congregation and
Speaker 1: audio message from their beloved.
Speaker 5: Apostle yielded bar your man.
Speaker 1: I do not see the bars that separate me from you,
Speaker 1: He told his followers, I see your beautiful faces because
Speaker 1: you are the children of God. And then the apostle
Speaker 1: told his believers to repeat after him, I promise you
Speaker 1: Lord that whatever the suffering, I will never abandon you,
Speaker 1: and they all burst out crying. This is how the
Speaker 1: man called Nason qua quing Garcia went from alleged abuser
Speaker 1: to martyr. As the congregation carried on with its celebrations
Speaker 1: in Armosa Provincia, the preliminary hearings reviewing Nassan's criminal activities
Speaker 1: were underway in California.
Speaker 5: During the same time that the churches having this very
Speaker 5: important celebration. All of the dirty laundry and the horrible
Speaker 5: things that were being done are coming now through testimony.
Speaker 1: A preliminary hearing is where the prosecution presents all the
Speaker 1: evidence and testimony to convince the court there's enough substantial
Speaker 1: grounds to bring the case to trial. And Nelly followed
Speaker 1: those hearings closely.
Speaker 5: So what was coming out is that Nasan's iPhone and
Speaker 5: iPad had many videos and photographs, and there was very
Speaker 5: graphic and detailed about what they were doing.
Speaker 1: In the videos and photographs. Nellie is talking about NASONI
Speaker 1: is having sex with multiple people, including with his co defendants,
Speaker 1: and not just playing missionary position sex.
Speaker 5: They found a video of Nason and Sustana Wajaka having sex.
Speaker 5: They described that scene as you know, being very solacious,
Speaker 5: where at the end she's given them oral copulation and
Speaker 5: then bidding his own semen back into his own mouth,
Speaker 5: which was I'm like, oh, my gosh.
Speaker 1: In another video, Nason is having sex with one of
Speaker 1: his co defendants and someone who looks like a miner.
Speaker 5: Then there's videos of Asaliah, you know, his other code defendant,
Speaker 5: having sex with the boy that has a mask.
Speaker 1: It wasn't enough that the videos had been found on
Speaker 1: his iPhone. Investigators also found records showing how many times
Speaker 1: the videos had been accessed, on what dates, and for
Speaker 1: how long, proving they were not just planted there without
Speaker 1: Nason's knowwch.
Speaker 5: They knew when he was looking at those pictures and videos,
Speaker 5: And even on June third, right before his arrest, they
Speaker 5: said one of the videos, he was looking at it,
Speaker 5: and they were very specific. They said four hundred and
Speaker 5: seventy eight seconds, which would amount to like seven minutes.
Speaker 5: Some of those videos were taking in his home in Wallalajada,
Speaker 5: right across the street from the church. Some of those
Speaker 5: videos were taken on February fourteenth of twenty nineteen, the
Speaker 5: day that you know, you have this big celebration in
Speaker 5: the church. I mean, they had all of those details,
Speaker 5: They had the GPS locations of where the videos were taken.
Speaker 5: They had all of that.
Speaker 1: So Naissan's defense team couldn't argue that the apostle was
Speaker 1: unaware he had child pornography on his phone, that he
Speaker 1: was framed, or that it was a setup as the
Speaker 1: church told the believers. The evidence was crystal clear.
Speaker 5: One of the videos that was discussed and testified at
Speaker 5: court was of himself recording the scene, and he's recording
Speaker 5: it both with his iPad which is set in one place,
Speaker 5: and then his iPad shows him coming onto the scene
Speaker 5: with his phone recording it from a different angle. When
Speaker 5: the officers or the detective was asked, could you identify
Speaker 5: him in the video? Could you see his face? And
Speaker 5: the detectives said, oh, absolutely, you could see him in
Speaker 5: the video.
Speaker 1: Nellie could no longer ignore the truth.
Speaker 5: Not everybody can access all that information. Me as a lawyer,
Speaker 5: I was able to because I know how to do that,
Speaker 5: but you know, the common church member doesn't know how
Speaker 5: to do that. Once I started getting this information, I said,
Speaker 5: you know, I can't do this.
Speaker 1: That's when she left the church.
Speaker 5: I can't believe in somebody who is engaging in this
Speaker 5: kind of conduct, who is supposed to be taking care
Speaker 5: of the church. Because we were taught that the apostle's
Speaker 5: job was to take care of the church, to keep
Speaker 5: her pure, not to abuse her.
Speaker 1: From that point on, Nelly kept a close eye on
Speaker 1: the case.
Speaker 5: There were some mistakes. In my opinion, that the the
Speaker 5: kitchen maid.
Speaker 1: That's next after the break. Nason qua Quing Garcia was
Speaker 1: arrested in twenty nineteen, but it took four years for
Speaker 1: his plea deal to be handed down. It's not exactly
Speaker 1: unusual for a criminal case to be delayed and delayed
Speaker 1: on like civil cases. The onus is on the prosecutor
Speaker 1: to prove beyond the reasonable doubt that the accused is guilty,
Speaker 1: and there's a lot of regulations governing how a trial
Speaker 1: can proceed.
Speaker 7: In our legal system. There are rules, and effectively those
Speaker 7: rules are created to make it.
Speaker 8: A fair fight.
Speaker 1: That's Joey Jeditson, the lawyer who represents the Jane Doees
Speaker 1: in their ongoing civil case against Nason and Ledm. We
Speaker 1: met her in the last episode when she counseled the
Speaker 1: five women during the criminal case.
Speaker 7: The law does not always get it right, and in
Speaker 7: this case, there were so much that was working against
Speaker 7: these victims. In my opinion, and as time has passed,
Speaker 7: I have become a lot more enraged and a lot
Speaker 7: more incense.
Speaker 1: The rules Joy mentioned before, the ones created to make
Speaker 1: sure a fair trial occurs, that everyone is innocent until
Speaker 1: proven guilty, and each party has a fighting chance, also
Speaker 1: create a lot of opportunities to delay proceedings, to file
Speaker 1: motions and appeals when those rules are not being followed.
Speaker 1: It's a strategy Neliaguilar recognized early.
Speaker 5: On, because the longer you prolong a case like this,
Speaker 5: witnesses like victims will get tired. They'll move away though,
Speaker 5: maybe pass away or whatever, you know, so to diminish
Speaker 5: the possibility of going to trial. That's one of them.
Speaker 5: Another strategy in this case was a lot of appeals
Speaker 5: were being filed, so that also prolonged everything.
Speaker 1: Remember that first appeal what Nelly said the Church presented
Speaker 1: as a big victory that was based on a pretty
Speaker 1: minor technicality. When someone is charged with a crime, they
Speaker 1: have a right to a preliminary hearing within ten court days.
Speaker 1: It's to make sure the case is viable and that
Speaker 1: a wrongfully accused person doesn't trot in jail while waiting
Speaker 1: to be formally charged.
Speaker 6: Well.
Speaker 5: In Nasson's particular case, he had based on the time
Speaker 5: wivers that they had entered during the various hearings. His
Speaker 5: preliminary hearing needed to be heard by September twenty third
Speaker 5: of twenty nineteen. On that day, you know, his attorney
Speaker 5: showed up to the courts that we haven't been provided
Speaker 5: with all discovery. We're not ready well because of that
Speaker 5: technicality that he was supposed to have his preliminary hearing
Speaker 5: on the twenty third, but his case was continued till
Speaker 5: the twenty sixth. That technicality caused that case to be dismissed.
Speaker 1: When the DA's office refiled the charges at the end
Speaker 1: of July, they made sure all delays were waived and
Speaker 1: accounted for. But Nason's lawyers found another issue to appeal,
Speaker 1: a much more serious one this time.
Speaker 8: As Joey explains, I am legally required to give all
Speaker 8: of the evidence within my control and the control of
Speaker 8: my clients over to the defense and the defense attorneys.
Speaker 7: So that they could use that to be able to
Speaker 7: kind of bring forward their case same with them. And
Speaker 7: this is something that is very very very controlled because
Speaker 7: we need this to be a fair fight.
Speaker 1: But it turns out the DA did not provide the
Speaker 1: defense with all their evidence.
Speaker 7: And one of the things that the prosecution the Attorney
Speaker 7: General's Office failed to do was provide text message between
Speaker 7: certain Jane Does and Nason.
Speaker 1: The term for this is a Brady violation, and it's
Speaker 1: a big problem.
Speaker 7: That creates a mistrial or an opportunity for a mistrial.
Speaker 1: So even if the case went to trial and the
Speaker 1: prosecution won, Nason's lawyers could have appealed and contested the
Speaker 1: trial and all would have been for nothing.
Speaker 7: Even if they won the case, Nason's attorney would appropriately
Speaker 7: file an appeal and say, listen, they won because they
Speaker 7: didn't give us evidence when they were supposed to, and
Speaker 7: because they didn't, we didn't have a fair chance. And
Speaker 7: then that throws out the whole entire case.
Speaker 1: On March fifteen, twenty twenty two, Nason's attorney filed a
Speaker 1: two hundred and eleven page motion to dismiss the case,
Speaker 1: based mainly, but not exclusively, on the Brady violation. The
Speaker 1: motion also alleged suppression of evidence, fabrication of evidence, unreliable witnesses,
Speaker 1: and witness coercion. In the end, Judge Stiffen Marcus did
Speaker 1: not throw out the case, but he did order the
Speaker 1: DA to turn everything over asap. The evidence not being
Speaker 1: fully shared by the prosecution had been an issue since
Speaker 1: the court proceedings first started. We reached out to the
Speaker 1: District Attorney's office for the series. They declined to grant
Speaker 1: us an interview and directed us towards their press statements instead,
Speaker 1: but those did not address that alone explained why there
Speaker 1: were so many missteps on their part when it came
Speaker 1: to hunting over the evidence. At first, the DA alleged
Speaker 1: it was because of the pornographic and sensitive nature of
Speaker 1: the material, but this time, under pressure from the court,
Speaker 1: they had to admit it was at least partially because
Speaker 1: they had only employed a single agent to sort through
Speaker 1: the mountains of material. To top it off, that a
Speaker 1: neither a translator to understand Spanish. Some of what the
Speaker 1: DA had access to anason stem did not, or text
Speaker 1: messages from four of the Jane Doe's phones. Among the
Speaker 1: items that prosecutors fail to disclose where some of those
Speaker 1: tender love letters we have seen other victims write to
Speaker 1: their apostle and abuser. If you have followed this series
Speaker 1: since episode one, you know victims of high control groups
Speaker 1: need extensive coping and survival mechanisms to be able to
Speaker 1: live through their ordeals, and appeasement is one of the
Speaker 1: most common. But once in possession of those text messages,
Speaker 1: the defense argued that some of the relationships may very
Speaker 1: well have been consensual, and to the unsuspecting public and
Speaker 1: surely to some untrained people in the courtroom, the argument
Speaker 1: would have stuck unless presented with better.
Speaker 5: Context, because if it's consensual rather than a rate, then
Speaker 5: the set and scene.
Speaker 9: As less as two of the Jane Does were adults
Speaker 9: when they were violated, the DA would have to work
Speaker 9: way harder to establish the absence of consent when there
Speaker 9: were loving text messages between the victims and the accused.
Speaker 7: I don't think anyone listened to these victims. I don't
Speaker 7: think the time was taken to actually hear their stories
Speaker 7: and understand Elis del Mundo.
Speaker 1: The counts related to Jane Does four and five, the
Speaker 1: most brutal ones, the ones that would carry a life sentence,
Speaker 1: were thrown out.
Speaker 7: It's very easy to say these two women, these two girls,
Speaker 7: consented and not put in the time and effort to
Speaker 7: understand that perspective.
Speaker 1: Nason could not wiggle out of the charges against him
Speaker 1: that related to underage victims, but he finally had the
Speaker 1: leverage he needed to avoid a trial where even more
Speaker 1: damaging evidence would have become public. He risked losing everything.
Speaker 1: Morceau and Aleandro Campo, securing her own plea deal, began
Speaker 1: cooperating with the DA.
Speaker 5: First of all, he's looking at lice in prison. He
Speaker 5: had one of his co defendants was going to testify
Speaker 5: against him. Then there's the factor of what is the
Speaker 5: church membership can see.
Speaker 1: Twenty eight new stations were approved to cover the case
Speaker 1: from inside the courtroom. The judge had ruled against the
Speaker 1: showing of child pornography in court, but he had approved
Speaker 1: the explicit videos of Nason and Susanna Wahaka, like the
Speaker 1: one Nelly described earlier, to be shown to the jury.
Speaker 5: Nathan knew that that was going to be shown in
Speaker 5: news coverage and his followers were going to see that,
Speaker 5: and the church members were going to see that.
Speaker 1: Nason didn't want to trial for the same reasons the
Speaker 1: Jane does desperately did. They wanted the videos, the evidence gathered,
Speaker 1: the testimony is to be seen.
Speaker 10: They want to shut down the church.
Speaker 7: They want to make sure that as much focus and
Speaker 7: attention comes to this because this church, this cult was
Speaker 7: able to thrive in secrecy.
Speaker 1: The trial was supposed to start on Monday thirteenth, but
Speaker 1: on Friday the third, the Jane Doe's got a call.
Speaker 7: This something that should have taken three months six months
Speaker 7: max was now taking a year and a half and
Speaker 7: they have been waiting and dying for their day in court.
Speaker 7: And then that Friday they get a calm. They're told
Speaker 7: that a plea deal was reached. After being told consistently
Speaker 7: and continuously for the last year and a half that
Speaker 7: that would never happen.
Speaker 1: Now Sun accepted the plea deal. He would be sentenced
Speaker 1: Wednesday eighth, and there will be no trial. It was
Speaker 1: all over. Even though a g Jaberbresseerra had promised that
Speaker 1: jene Does no cleadeal would take place, the new ag
Speaker 1: Robonta hadn't made any promises. It is likely he wasn't
Speaker 1: willing to lose such an important case so early in
Speaker 1: his tenure. The jene Does were devastated, and they made
Speaker 1: sure to let the Attorney Generalsfice know how they felt.
Speaker 1: On a soon sentencing.
Speaker 10: Day, the jury box was filled with people from the
Speaker 10: news media and so it actually did kind of look
Speaker 10: like a trial the fence table was filled.
Speaker 7: The attorneys for Nason were at the table, The Attorney
Speaker 7: General's office and the prosecutors were at their table.
Speaker 10: The judge was there.
Speaker 7: It looked like a trial, and it looked like these
Speaker 7: girls were actually testifying.
Speaker 11: You made our parents train us from birth to love
Speaker 11: you above all things. You will then continue to abuse
Speaker 11: young girls again, because the fanatics will bring you their
Speaker 11: own children.
Speaker 12: I was a child, and he the filed my body
Speaker 12: and my innocence. I had to serve his food, I
Speaker 12: had to scrib his.
Speaker 13: Toilet, I had to dress him in the morning and
Speaker 13: missage just me at night. I was commanded to wake
Speaker 13: him up every.
Speaker 11: Morning with a sex act. You actually pray and harm
Speaker 11: the people that love you the most to make me
Speaker 11: this property.
Speaker 13: Those were his words.
Speaker 14: And I was his property, and then you can do
Speaker 14: whatever it pleased with me.
Speaker 7: It was gut wrenching. They were sobbing the entire time.
Speaker 7: The people in the audience were sobbing. The family members,
Speaker 7: some of the media were crying as well and getting emotional, and.
Speaker 10: You could tell.
Speaker 7: That they were so profoundly affected by what the girls
Speaker 7: were saying.
Speaker 1: They tried to make their case as hard as they
Speaker 1: could to keep their abuse her locktop as many years
Speaker 1: as possible.
Speaker 11: Please your honor, with the first authority in your life
Speaker 11: that will stand against this predator, give him before extra
Speaker 11: years and steps its loves. Give him the gift of
Speaker 11: four more years to reflect on his actions. Give us
Speaker 11: four more years of peace. Gimla loose del bundle children,
Speaker 11: four more years of safety.
Speaker 1: Judge Cohen praise the Jane does on their bravery and
Speaker 1: condemned the families that had abandoned them, But he still
Speaker 1: didn't mutch the.
Speaker 14: Lives are ruined and the guise of serving a supreme
Speaker 14: being as the Jane does. At this point I apologize.
Speaker 14: My hands are tied. Lawyers do what lawyers do, and
Speaker 14: at this point my hands are tied.
Speaker 1: On Unjune the third, when the pledeal was being drawn
Speaker 1: up behind the Chaine Doos bags, the judge asked Nason
Speaker 1: if he was willing to give up his right to
Speaker 1: a her trial before a jury of peers. He asked
Speaker 1: if Nason understood he would need to surrender a DNA
Speaker 1: sample and register as a sex offender with every police
Speaker 1: station wherever he resided for the rest of his life.
Speaker 1: He asked Nason if he was pleading on their duress,
Speaker 1: or because he was being promised anything, or if he
Speaker 1: was doing it voluntarily out of his own free will.
Speaker 1: He asked him if he was willing to waive his
Speaker 1: right to any future appeal. To all those questions, Nason
Speaker 1: qua quing Garcia answered with a court yes. In the end,
Speaker 1: the Apostle of God accepted his guilt on two counts
Speaker 1: of forcible oral copulation involving minors and one count of
Speaker 1: a lewd act upon a child, despite the documented evidence
Speaker 1: and witness statements. In the end, the twenty six counts
Speaker 1: had been reduced to just three.
Speaker 14: Solomon must be one third the mid term. The mid
Speaker 14: term is two years. One third there of is eight
Speaker 14: months offended. Is not ordered to appear as he has
Speaker 14: waived his right. We are done.
Speaker 1: Sixteen years and eight months in total, two of which
Speaker 1: had already been served a guilty sentence, yet no trial.
Speaker 1: It was a loss the church would immediately spin into
Speaker 1: a win. More on that when we return. Even with
Speaker 1: Naton behind bars, the Church continues to preach his innocence.
Speaker 1: The absence of a trial was explained as the victims
Speaker 1: lacking any real evidence and the lenient sentence meant Nason
Speaker 1: was pure. He had taken the plea deal only because
Speaker 1: he was framed and could not get a fair trial.
Speaker 1: The church said he pled guilty as a sacrifice in
Speaker 1: order to and I quote spare the church and his
Speaker 1: family more suffering.
Speaker 7: It was the very night he took the plea deal
Speaker 7: one of the leaders of the church sat in the
Speaker 7: church and told everyone that this was a lie, and
Speaker 7: Naston was a murder and he was being you know, sacrificed,
Speaker 7: and he was forced to go and can tend against evil,
Speaker 7: and totally switched the narrative to make him seem like
Speaker 7: this innocent, you know, victim.
Speaker 1: Joey has worked her share of abuse cases like le
Speaker 1: luzel Mundos, often probono, and is not exactly surprised that
Speaker 1: the law doesn't always bend towards justice.
Speaker 7: I have seen it time and time again, a white
Speaker 7: American client gets more money for the same abuse than
Speaker 7: a Hispanic or a black client, or any other kind
Speaker 7: of minority. And so these were all Latina women, and
Speaker 7: I think that it was very easy to brush it
Speaker 7: under the rug.
Speaker 1: She compares Nasson's leaning sentence to that of nexiums Keith Ranieri.
Speaker 7: There is no way for me to reconcile the Naxium
Speaker 7: leader getting one hundred and twenty years. And this is
Speaker 7: not to take away a single thing from the victims
Speaker 7: of Nexium, because my heart truly, truly goes out to them.
Speaker 7: But objectively, I mean, there was kidnapping here, there was
Speaker 7: force bestiality, there was forsodomy, there.
Speaker 8: Was brutal, brutal, brutal.
Speaker 7: Rape, and how do you reconcile him getting barely sixteen years.
Speaker 1: But even though the Apostle of God did not get
Speaker 1: what he deserved and the criminal case didn't go as
Speaker 1: she and the victims had hoped, Joey thinks this civil
Speaker 1: case she's currently leading will give some tiny bit of
Speaker 1: relief to the genders.
Speaker 7: What these girls want, and what they have said universally
Speaker 7: to everyone, is that they want to make sure that
Speaker 7: this doesn't happen to anyone ever again.
Speaker 10: That's all they want.
Speaker 1: And they know the best way to do that is
Speaker 1: for them to not just be heard but believed.
Speaker 7: What all cults do is create a system of just
Speaker 7: things that allows the abuse to perpetuate. Once you have
Speaker 7: every person in the world telling you you're so lucky,
Speaker 7: you're so blessed. Oh my goodness, this is the best
Speaker 7: thing that could ever happen to you. This is your
Speaker 7: purpose in life, then you'll do anything.
Speaker 1: That's the way it calls operate, actually, and it makes
Speaker 1: it uncomprehensible to the rest of the world. Why did
Speaker 1: they bring the charges twenty years later? Because they have
Speaker 1: to get rid of all the invisible constructions around their
Speaker 1: heads and gain the strength that takes decades sometimes to
Speaker 1: do that.
Speaker 7: You're believing in something that isn't there. It's this intangible
Speaker 7: thing in the sky, and so you're almost required to
Speaker 7: suspend logic and check laws at the door because you're
Speaker 7: believing something that you don't see, and because you're buying
Speaker 7: into that, there's this cognitive dissonance where you're able to
Speaker 7: buy into anything.
Speaker 1: It's exactly what you just described. Make people understand why
Speaker 1: this happens the way it does and why these people
Speaker 1: subject themselves to this abuse is willingly, but it's not willingly.
Speaker 7: And I always say, you guys didn't have a chance.
Speaker 8: You guys didn't stand a chance.
Speaker 7: They didn't. The cult and all of the elements of
Speaker 7: a cult creates a situation where it is able to really, really,
Speaker 7: really do whatever it is that they want to do.
Speaker 7: They exert the control. It's also formulated. It works on
Speaker 7: basic human psychology, and I think that most people would really,
Speaker 7: really really fall prey in the same way.
Speaker 1: It's hard to believe how easy irrational. Let's say, normal
Speaker 1: people can't fall pray to a cult, but every day
Speaker 1: high control groups ensnare and bend their victims to their will,
Speaker 1: obliterating all their logic and reason, sometimes for years to come.
Speaker 1: And it doesn't matter how smart or how educated you are.
Speaker 1: It can happen to any of us, or to those
Speaker 1: closest to us. I know this because I grew up
Speaker 1: in a high control group and so how it affected
Speaker 1: myself and my family. If you're an a occult or
Speaker 1: witnessing a friend or family members who come to occult powers,
Speaker 1: it can be hard to know what to do, how
Speaker 1: to help someone who's going through it, or how to
Speaker 1: get out yourself. But it's not impossible.
Speaker 6: When you get out of a cult. It's like going
Speaker 6: through a divorce because you go through all of the
Speaker 6: same emotions. You go through, the disbelief, you go through,
Speaker 6: the anger, you go through Oh my god, it can't
Speaker 6: be true. And it's every single motion that you go
Speaker 6: through when you're having a breakup, you go through when
Speaker 6: you're separating from a cult. It's your life, it's your identity,
Speaker 6: it's your whole like your whole being.
Speaker 1: That's next on the final episode of Sacred Scandal Season two.
Speaker 1: Sacred Scandala uzel Mundo is a production of Exile Content
Speaker 1: Studio in partnership with Iheartsmichael Tura podcast Network, and is
Speaker 1: hosted by Me Robert Tagarza, produced by Sabin Janssen with
Speaker 1: the help of Stella, Emmett, Reynolds, Gutierres and Anna Saved
Speaker 1: Octavio written by myself and Viter, also research by Robert
Speaker 1: Tagarza with help from Reynolds Gutierrez. Additional reporting by Florence
Speaker 1: second stylist Ga Ga Garcia. Engineering by Uga Mendoza and
Speaker 1: Sabin Johnsen. Sound designed by patrickin Arnis. Original music by
Speaker 1: Patrick Hart, edited by writer Alsop and Marivel Kezara Smith.
Speaker 1: Executive producers are Rose Reed, Carmen gratterol Isaac Lee and
Speaker 1: Andovilla then Alboutista Overseas Audio at Exil Content Studio. Our
Speaker 1: executive producers at iHeart, ar Gisel Bancez and Arlene Santana.
Speaker 1: Sacred Scandal was created by Melanie Bartley and Paula Varus
Speaker 1: Special thanks to Monk Music Studios. For more podcasts, go
Speaker 1: to the iHeartRadio app or anywhere you listen to your
Speaker 1: favorite podcasts.