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La Luz del Mundo leader racketeering.

FILE - Naason Joaquin Garcia, the leader of a Mexico-based evangelical church with a worldwide membership, attends a bail review hearing in Los Angeles Superior Court on July 15, 2019. (Al Seib/Los Angeles Times via AP, Pool, File)

Longtime head of Mexican megachurch is indicted in New York on federal sex trafficking charges

A New York federal indictment has charged the longtime head of a Mexican megachurch with racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking. Authorities announced Wednesday that Naasón Joaquín García and five others were charged in the newly unsealed indictment. García is already serving more than 16 years in a California prison for sexually abusing young followers. The indictment alleges that García victimized members of the church for decades. It said that he and his father, who died in 2014, carried out the abuse of children and women. Attorney Alan Jackson, representing García, called the indictment “recycled claims dressed up in inflammatory language.”

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