The pastor of a scandal-plagued church in Toronto, Canada, was found not guilty of sexually assaulting a member of his congregation.
Jae-Kap Song had been accused of telling a parishioner that evil spirits would turn her into a hunchback-like creature, before sexually assaulting her.
The pastor of a scandal-plagued Toronto church told a parishioner that evil spirits would turn her into a hunchback-like creature, before he sexually assaulted her, an Orangeville, Ontario court heard on Tuesday.
Jae-Kap Song, once pastor of the now closed Jesus First Church, also told the alleged victim her husband was cheating on her and pressured her to have “revenge” sex with him, the woman testified.
After more than 18 months of being accused of committing horrific acts of gang sexual assault, threatening death, child pornography and administering rape drugs, seven men and two women had all 485 charges against them withdrawn in the Ontario Court of Justice Tuesday afternoon.
One of the so-called victims of alleged gang rapes within a Korean “cult” now says the allegations were fictitiously scripted by the “cult leader,” a lawyer for one of the accused charged said Tuesday.
The case unravelled in March after a teenaged girl and three young women told police they were drugged, beaten and gang-raped by a group of men whom they had met through a Korean church between the fall of 2009 and February 2010.
Reports that Greater Toronto Area pastor Jae-Kap (Joe) Song ran a sex cult and received his religious training from a California mail order firm are ridiculous fabrications, Song’s lawyer says.
Nine members of the congregation — including two women — have been charged with sex-related offences since March.
Jacqueline An, a Toronto lawyer representing one of the accused, refuses to call Jae-Kap Song a “pastor” or “reverend,” saying instead that he was the leader of a cult with branches in Canada’s Greater Toronto Area and South Korea.
Song’s legal woes increased this month, when three former members of his congregation — who are facing criminal charges in Canada — successfully pressed authorities in South Korea to lay charges against Song.
Police say the suspects got to know the victims through a Korean community church in North Toronto.
Journalist Jay Jung, a reporter for Korea Times Daily, began investigating the church after members, including the suspects, recently broke away from the congregation.
“They felt Pastor Song had done something wrong and it was not right,” Jung said.
More charges have been laid in an increasingly tangled criminal investigation into alleged gang sexual assaults across the GTA.
Two south Korean sisters in their mid-30s were charged over the weekend, joining several male suspects who have also been implicated.
The 55-year-old pastor of a Toronto church at the centre of allegations of gang sexual assault was arrested on separate charges Monday.
The pastor’s indictment comes as the church is embroiled in separate alleged sex crimes which police say involve gang rape.