Naasón Joaquín García, the leader of Mexico-based megachurch La Luz del Mundo, has been charged by a federal grand jury with two felony counts of producing and possessing child sexual abuse material (CSAM) involving a minor, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office, Central District of California.
García was arrested at Los Angeles International Airport in June 2019 on state child sexual exploitation charges. He pleaded guilty to two counts of forcible oral copulation on a minor and one count of committing a lewd act on a child in 2022. He is now serving a 17-year prison sentence at the California Institution for Men in Chino.
According to the indictment, García knowingly engaged the minor in sexually explicit conduct for the purpose of producing visual depictions on May 6, 2019. The U.S. Attorney office stated that five videos of the victim were found in García's iPad at the time of arrest.
Facing both federal charges, García may receive a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years, with a maximum of 30 years for the child pornography production count, and a maximum sentence of 10 years for child pornography possession.
