- Kenyan doomsday cult leader charged with murder of 191 children
- Former La Luz del Mundo 'cult' members protest religious event in Houston
- An ex-Olympian pleads guilty to sexually assaulting boys
Kenyan doomsday cult leader charged with murder of 191 children Reuters February 6, 2024
NAIROBI, Feb 6 (Reuters) - Kenyan cult leader Paul Mackenzie and 29 associates were charged on Tuesday with the murder of 191 children whose bodies were found among more than double that number buried in a forest.
The defendants all denied the charges brought before a court in the coastal town of Malindi. One suspect was found mentally unfit to stand trial.
Prosecutors say Mackenzie ordered his followers to starve themselves and their children to death so that they could go to heaven before the world ended, in one of the world's worst cult-related disasters in recent history.
The followers of his Good News International Church lived in several secluded settlements in an 800-acre area within the Shakahola forest. More than 400 bodies were eventually exhumed.
Mackenzie was arrested last April. He has already been charged with terrorism-related crimes, manslaughter and torture. He was also convicted in December of producing and distributing films without a licence and sentenced to 12 months in jail. A former taxi driver, Mackenzie forbade cult members from sending their children to school and from going to hospital when they were ill....
Former La Luz del Mundo 'cult' members protest religious event in Houston
The Houston First Corporation, which manages the George R. Brown Convention Center downtown, said it has "no legal basis for denying" the megachurch to host an event. By Eric Killelea Feb 12, 2024
The leader of La Luz del Mundo, a Mexico-based Christian megachurch with 18 Houston congregations, has been locked up in a California prison since being arrested on child sexual exploitation charges in 2019. Naasón Joaquín García, the 54-year-old self-described "Apostle of Jesus Christ," pleaded guilty in 2022 to sexually abusing three minors and has been serving a nearly 17-year sentence in prison. He is now facing another 40 years after being charged in October with two felony counts of producing and possessing child pornography.
Meanwhile, documentaries on HBO and Netflix have featured stories from former church members who claim they were brainwashed and sexually abused by leaders in the Christian church.
Regardless of the church's reputation, La Luz Del Mundo—"The Light of the World"—has managed to book an event meant to attract thousands of members from Houston and across the United States and Mexico to the George R. Brown Convention Center near Discovery Green downtown, taking place Monday through Wednesday. In the past two weeks, Houston church members have been distributing digital flyers displaying animated versions of García on Facebook to promote the "Holy Supper 2024" event....
Judith Castillo is among the growing number of former members of the church's Houston congregations that have been asking state lawmakers, Mayor John Whitmire, city council members and Houston First, the government corporation that operates the George R. Brown Convention Center, to cancel the event. Castillo told them that both she and her daughter had been sexually abused by church members in Houston.
Unveiled: Surviving La Luz Del Mundo - HBO Documentary
This documentary series explores the horrifying, yet relatively unknown story of the Christian church La Luz del Mundo (LLDM) and the sexual abuse that scores of members, many of them minors, say they have suffered at the hands of its successive leaders, known as the “Apostles.” Told from the point of view of the survivors who met to share their stories of abuse, the series chronicles the history of one of the most powerful religious groups not only in Mexico where it was founded, but also in the United States, while giving voice to the men and women who were brave enough to stand up and call out the heinous crimes.
Under the guise of the only true church offering eternal salvation, LLDM, which claims to have congregations in over 50 countries and over five million followers, was founded in 1926 by Aarón Joaquín Gonzalez. Joaquín Gonzalez was succeeded by his son and then grandson, all three Apostles said to be appointed by “divine revelation.” Now, scores of former members have come forward to describe how the Apostles built and maintained a system to procure and groom children for abuse. The series culminates in the events leading up to the 2019 arrest of the current Apostle, Naasón Joaquín García and his present-day trial, shedding light on a story that was all but ignored by mainstream media, and illustrating the positive power of social media to unite and provide agency to the survivors.
An ex-Olympian pleads guilty to sexually assaulting boys – but the total number of victims ‘remains unknown,’ DA says Holly Yan and Nic F. Anderson, CNN February 10, 2024
As boys, they trusted him as a revered coach and mentor. As men, they say he’s a “monster” who used his Olympic fame to manipulate young athletes and sexually assault them.
Now, more than four decades after Conrad Mainwaring trained young athletes at a Massachusetts sports camp, the 72-year-old pleaded guilty this week to 14 counts of indecent assault and battery involving nine male victims.
In addition to the criminal cases in Massachusetts, at least seven men have accused Mainwaring of sexual assault in civil lawsuits in New York state, an attorney representing them told CNN. And there could be more victims who have yet to come forward....
Immediately after the Olympics, Mainwaring moved to Massachusetts to work at Camp Greylock – a boys’ sports camp in Berkshire County – from 1976 to 1979, the district attorney said. “While working at the camp, the Defendant is confirmed to have sexually abused nine children,” Shugrue said in a written statement. CNN has reached out to Camp Greylock for comment. For decades, the victims’ abuse was a closely guarded secret. Some accusers told CNN they had felt too uncomfortable or even ashamed to speak out....
Waxman said Mainwaring was such an “expert manipulator” that he didn’t realize he had been sexually assaulted until years later, when he was in college. Then he felt a wave of shame and self-loathing, the victim told his abuser in court Thursday.
“Over time, as I realized what you had done, I began to experience many self-damaging thoughts: ‘What was wrong with me? Why did you choose me in the first place? Why didn’t I stop you? I must be defective in some way or ways,’” Waxman told Mainwaring. “Those negative thoughts took up space in my head for decades.”
Mainwaring pleaded guilty to 14 counts – or instances – of sexual assault involving nine male victims who were between 13 and 19 years old at the time. As part of a plea deal, he was sentenced to 10 to 11 years in prison, a spokesperson for the Berkshire County District Attorney’s Office said. But more allegations of rampant abuse by Mainwaring have emerged....
After Mainwaring left Camp Greylock in 1979, he moved to upstate New York to study guidance and counseling at Syracuse University, according to a civil court filing. He was also employed as a resident adviser.
In 1980, Mainwaring also started working with “high school student athletes at the nearby Nottingham High School,” another court filing says....
In a statement to CNN, the Syracuse City School District said it “has no records that Conrad Mainwaring was ever a staff member or a sanctioned volunteer at Nottingham or in the Syracuse City School District.” But the Olympian quickly earned the teenager’s trust and friendship, and the pair would speak regularly – often in a guidance counselor’s office, Kriesberg said. “We would talk about school and sports and whatever teenage boys want to talk about,” Kriesberg told CNN. “He was part counselor, part mentor, part coach, part friend, big brother, therapist.”
But later, Kriesberg said, he realized Mainwaring was actually a manipulative “monster.” “I was being groomed – sort of set up for the kill, so to speak.” In the summer of 1981, when Kriesberg was 17, he visited Mainwaring at his Syracuse University campus home.
Mainwaring then started massaging Kriesberg....” the complaint says. “Mainwaring used intimidation, fear, fraud, force and his position of power and authority over Joseph,” the lawsuit says. “Mainwaring told Joseph that this procedure was necessary so he could properly understand Joseph’s sex drive and provide proper counseling. Joseph did not consent to Mainwaring’s sexual assault.”
The lawsuit names Syracuse University as a defendant, saying it “did not conduct a background check, did not contact Mainwaring’s prior employment, including his employment with Camp Greylock, and did not collect references from Mainwaring” prior to allowing him to live on campus and hiring him as a resident adviser. A Syracuse University spokesperson declined to comment on Mainwaring and the sexual assault allegations against him, citing “still active litigation.”
Kriesberg said he could not pursue criminal action against Mainwaring for the alleged 1981 incident at Syracuse because the statute of limitations in New York state has passed. That’s why he’s pursuing civil action.
