A CO-ACCUSED of Apollo Quiboloy, President Rodrigo Duterte’s close friend and spiritual adviser, has agreed to cooperate with US federal authorities in prosecuting him in his sex trafficking case in the United States, according to the US Department of Justice (DOJ).
Maria de Leon, 73, admitted to federal prosecutors that she had been processing fraudulent documents for members of Quiboloy’s religious sect called “Kingdom of Jesus Christ (KOJC), The Name Above Every Name,” the US Attorney’s Office of the DOJ for the Central District of California said in a statement on April 1.
The fake immigration papers allowed the entry into the United States of young women who were allegedly duped into soliciting donations for Quiboloy’s “bogus” foundation and were forced to have sex with him, the DOJ said.
It said that De Leon, a Los Angeles-based paralegal, admitted participation in violating US immigration laws in a plea bargain agreement, which was filed in a US district court on Friday (Saturday in Manila).
It said De Leon, a resident of Koreatown in Los Angeles and the owner of Liberty Legal Document Services, confessed that she had supplied spurious travel documents for KOJC members for about eight years in connivance with the leaders of the Quiboloy-founded sect.
The fraudulent immigration documents were supposedly used for the fake marriages and visas of the KOJC members to make their stay in the United States valid.
The US justice department said the federal court would soon set a hearing for De Leon to formally discuss her guilty plea.
Ferdinand Topacio, Quiboloy’s lawyer, said De Leon’s decision to plead guilty will not have any legal effect on the case against his client, pointing out that “any confession only binds the confessor.”
He also clarified that De Leon was not a sect member and that she did not have any connection with KOJC and Quiboloy “officially or personally.”
Quiboloy, an eccentric televangelist who calls himself the “Appointed Son of God,” and eight others were indicted in November 2021 for conspiracy to engage in sex trafficking by force, fraud and coercion, and sex trafficking of children.
A US federal grand jury said girls and young women were coerced to have sex with Quiboloy under pain of “eternal damnation.”
On Jan. 31, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) issued a wanted poster declaring Quiboloy as one of the most wanted suspected sex traffickers in America.
The FBI said Mr. Duterte’s friend, who will turn 72 on April 25, was wanted by the federal government also for bulk cash smuggling. (©Philippine Daily Inquirer 2022/Marlon Ramos)
