Longtime presidential friend and spiritual adviser Apollo Carreon Quiboloy was indicted by US prosecutors in a 74 pages charge sheet for sex trafficking for allegedly coercing girls and young women into having sex with him. In previous years, he and his church leaders were also charged with human trafficking, immigration fraud and bringing in $250,000 in cold cash in the US.
A 74 pages indictment charge for sex trafficking was filed Thursday against President Duterte’s longtime friend and spiritual adviser, Apollo Quiboloy, by United States prosecutors.
The case stemmed from his allegedly coercing girls and young women to have sex with him as part of their ‘pastoral’ duties.
The multi-millionaire founder of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ, the Name Above Every Name church based in Davao, Quiboloy, and his other church officials, including two US-based church administrators were named in the charge sheet.
Sex trafficking
They were being accused of running a sex trafficking operation that threatened victims as young as 12 years old with "eternal damnation" and physical abuse, said a Reuters report.
Federal prosecutors in Los Angeles said the new indictment expanded on allegations earlier made last year against three church administrators based in the city.
It accuses nine defendants with participating in a scheme in which church members were brought to the United States using fraudulently obtained visas and forced to solicit donations to a bogus children's charity.
Lavish lifestyle
Prosecutors said the donations were used to pay for the "lavish lifestyles" of the church leaders.
The latest indictment adds Quiboloy and five other new defendants to an existing indictment filed in 2020.
Prosecutors said the US authorities arrested three of the new defendants on Thursday, but three others, including Quiboloy, were believed to be in the Philippines.
Lawyers for the new defendants could not immediately be identified and the Philippine embassy did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Night duty
The indictment alleges that Quiboloy and two other defendants recruited females aged 12 to 25 as personal assistants, or "pastorals."
It said they were required to prepare Quiboloy’s meals, clean his residences, give him massages, and have sex with him during what they called "night duty."
Quiboloy, a self-proclaimed "Owner of the Universe" and "Appointed Son of God," is a longtime friend and spiritual adviser of Duterte.
The influential evangelist is followed by millions of Filipinos.
In September, Filipino boxer Manny Pacquiao, a candidate for next year's presidential election who has frequently clashed with Duterte, sued Quiboloy for libel after he accused the multiple world champion of embezzling funds intended for a sports complex.
Church leaders are highly influential in Philippine politics.
God’s will?
In the indictment, prosecutors said church officials ordered the "pastorals," who were aged 14, 15 and 17, to have sex with Quiboloy as part of their "night duty."
The pastorals were also instructed to write "commitment letters" to devote their lives, including their bodies, to Quiboloy.
By performing "night duty," the pastorals were told they were pleasing God and would allow them to obtain salvation.
The indictment says that Quiboloy had sex with a pastoral in 2009 and told her it was "the Father's will" and "the Father was happy over what the Son was doing."
Rewards
Those who performed their duties to the satisfaction of Quiboloy and other church officials were rewarded with privileges, including trips to tourist destinations like Disneyland, flights in private jets, use of cell phones, and “honorariums” by KOJC administrators, the indictment alleges.
The prosecutors said the female victims were told not to speak of the "night duty" and those who expressed hesitation in performing it were told "they had devil in them" and "risked eternal damnation."
The pastorals also said they were threatened and physically abused by Quiboloy if they leave KOJC or were not available to perform "night duty."
According to the indictment, victims who escaped from KOJC were harassed, threatened and alleged to be involved in illicit activities, such as cybersex and theft, by Quiboloy and other church officials.
Donation solicitors
The prosecutors also said Quiboloy and other church officials would transport KOJC workers in the US to solicit donations as CFJ "volunteers," who were referred to in the church as "Full Time Miracle Workers."
The volunteers were told to solicit "nearly every day, year-round, working very long hours, and often sleeping in cars overnight."
They were instructed to falsely inform the public that the money was used "to aid impoverished Filipino children," the indictment alleges.
Daily quotas
The prosecutors said church officials would set daily quotas for volunteers and these were increased during the months of September to October through January to February of the following year, which were referred within the church as "Month of Blessing" or "Knights of Harvest."
Those who failed to meet their daily solicitation quotas were "yelled at, shamed, berated, physically abused, or forced to fast, i.e., abstain from food, while being locked in a room at the KOJC Compound."
For the volunteers to stay permanently in the US, they were entered into fraudulent marriages or told to apply student visas, the prosecutors said.
To avoid bank reporting requirements and detection, KOJC workers did not deposit more than $10,000 in cash into a bank account.
The indictment also alleges that church officials had transferred funds to certain KOJC accounts in the Philippines to fund, among other things, construction of a stadium and Quiboloy's "lavish lifestyle."
Children’s Joy Foundation
The KOJC was founded in Davao in 1985 and claimed to have 6 million members in approximately 200 countries.
The church in 2007 began operating Children’s Joy Foundation, which is registered in the state of California as a foreign non-profit.
The prosecutors said Quiboloy frequently traveled to the United States to observe KOJC and CJF’s operations around February 2018.
He stayed at large residences that he controlled, including residences in Calabasas, California; Las Vegas, Nevada: and Kapolei, Hawaii, according to the indictment.
Co-accused
Charged together with Quiboloy were Teresita Tolibas Dandan, Helen Panilag, Felina Salinas, Guia Cabactulan, Marissa Duenas, Amanda Estopare, Bettina Padilla Roces and Maria De Leon.
A report by Hawaii News Now said that a Kristine Angeles was just one of several minors forced to have sex with Quiboloy, said her counsel, Grant Giventer.
But Quiboloy's counsel, Israelito Torreon, denied these allegations, saying that a rival church organization helping Angeles was behind the false claims.
"The new allegation that Pastor Quiboloy is involved in child sex rape, in behalf of the Kingdom, this charge is a pack of lies. This is not true," he said, stressing that the accusations are vague.
"We know for a fact that somebody is supporting her. Since 2015, she managed to delay the case and she kept on moving the postponement of that sexual assault case," he added.
Torreon also said that Angeles' grandmother, aunt and cousin who are still active members of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ in Davao City are upset and angry at her.
The report said Angeles came to Hawaii in 2014 on a religious visa but was tasked to sell "manapua and Krispy Kreme" donuts for the church's foundation.
She claimed being kicked by Quiboloy's business manager, Fe Salinas, when she didn't sell enough.
A case against Salinas is ongoing.
Salinas was one of the church members who were briefly detained in Hawaii last February after federal agents found $350,000 in cash hidden in socks in a private plane where Quiboloy was on board.
Detained
In May 2016, Quiboloy was detained for a day by federal agents in Honolulu after they found $350,000 from the private plane that he was on.
The cash was found folded and stuffed inside socks in a suitcase, Hawaii News Now said on its website.
Gun parts were also reportedly found on the plane.
The private plane, worth at least $15 million, remains in Honolulu as the federal government works to seize it.
Quiboloy, who was reportedly in Hawaii for a concert, was among 6 people on board the Cessna Citation Sovereign. The plane was about to leave Honolulu for Manila when US Customs boarded it.
The pastor later boarded a commercial flight to the Philippines.
Salinas, who was on board the aircraft, was arrested after she claimed that the cash was hers. She was charged with attempted bulk cash smuggling.
Salinas is said to be the business manager at the Waipahu church location and a loyal Quiboloy supporter. She appeared on court Wednesday and was released on a $25,000 bail.
Immigration fraud
In February 2020, a federal grand jury has indicted three leaders of Quiboloy’s church for alleged labor trafficking and immigration fraud.
They allegedly illegal obtained visas and other immigration documents for church members to enter and stay in the US.
They later allegedly forced church members to solicit donations for a bogus charity that claimed to help poor Filipino children, according to the indictment returned by the jury late Wednesday.
Defendants Guia Cabactulan, Marissa Duenas and Amanda Estopare were indicted for trafficking with respect to forced labor, document servitude, immigration fraud and marriage fraud.
Cabactulan, 59, was earlier described as a "top official" of Quiboloy's church who had direct communications with its Philippine leadership; while Duenas, 41, allegedly handled immigration documents and kept passports of victims of an alleged human trafficking ring.
The two were arrested in a raid at the Van Nuys, California compound of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ church.
Estopare, 48, who handled the church's "financial aspects" and fundraising, was also arrested in Virginia.
Federal prosecutors said the three leaders — Cabactulan, Duenas, and Estopare — brought church members to the United States under false pretenses, often telling them that they were invited to be special guests at a concert supporting the church’s ministry.
$20-M for luxury goods
The church raised about $20 million from 2014 through mid-2019, but most of the money went back into the church’s coffers and to pay for luxury goods for church leaders that included a Bentley, a bulletproof Cadillac Escalade, an Armani suit and real estate, the complaint said.
The church also owns a mansion in Calabasas, California.
The workers received little to no pay and were required to meet steep fundraising quotas.
Top performers, known as “assets,” were then forced into sham marriages with other church members, or made to obtain student visas so they could stay in the country, prosecutors said.
Investigators said church leaders had arranged 82 such marriages in the past 20 years.
One victim told investigators that church leaders “shaved her head and made her wear an orange shirt with ‘SOS’ on the back, which stood for ‘Son of Satan,’ Anne M. Wetzel, the FBI special agent in charge of the investigation, wrote in the criminal complaint.
Tags: #ApolloQuiboloy, #Davao-basedchurch, #sextrafficking, #luxuriouslifestyle, #religion