The attorney general of California Friday announced that his office had secured a guilty plea and conviction against the leader of Mexico-based megachurch La Luz del Mundo. Accepted just days before trial, the plea deal required that Naasón Joaquín García admit to three counts of sexual acts against minors.

García, who was arrested in 2019, had long maintained his innocence. The California Department of Justice launched an investigation against García in 2018 following a tip on the US Department of Justice’s website used to report abuses by clergy. Attorney General Rob Bonta stated that García “used his power to take advantage of children” and “relied on those around him to groom congregants for the purposes of sexual assault.” The conviction includes two counts of forcible oral copulation against minors and one count of a lewd act against a minor, all of which occurred in Los Angeles County beginning at least in 2015.

Three women enabled García’s crimes. One of them, Alondra Ocampo, who in 2020 pleaded guilty to four counts of contact with a minor for the purposes of committing a sexual offense and one count of forcible sexual penetration, had planned to testify against García and claimed that she was also a victim. One of García’s three associates, Azalea Rangel Melendez, remains at large.

Although some have left the church, many congregants of La Luz del Mundo, who number some five million in more than 50 countries and consider García an “apostle,” have maintained his innocence since he was arrested. It is unclear whether Friday’s guilty plea will result in a reckoning within the megachurch, such as that which has engulfed the Catholic Church in recent decades, including recent investigations in France, Portugal and Spain, and a massive settlement agreement in New Jersey.

García’s sentencing is scheduled for Wednesday, June 8.