South Korea sect leader sentenced to 33 years for sexual abuse

Usouth Korea court today sentenced Jeong Myung-seok, leader of the Christian sect Jesus Morning Star (JMS), to 33 years in prison for sexual abuse committed against 16 followers between 2018 and 2022.

The leader of the religious organization is now serving a 17 - year sentence for similar crimes.

The Daejeon District Court (center-west) found Jeong, 81, guilty in first instance of charges that include rape, taking advantage of the victims' inability to resist, reported the local news agency Yonhap.

Justice concluded that the religious leader used his position of authority as a religious leader to repeatedly abuse women.

The court pointed out that the methods employed were particularly serious, as Jeong helped himself from a structure of religious domination built over decades, according to Yonhap.

The penalty imposed exceeds the 27 years requested by the prosecutor.

JMS, whose official name is Christian Gospel Mission, was founded by Jeong in the early 1980s and is active both inside and outside South Korea.

The organization claims to have about 100,000 followers. However, Kim Do-hyung, a professor at Dankook University, estimated in 2023 that the number would be at least 20,000 to 30,000, as reported by local newspaper Kyunghyang Shinmun.

Jeong is currently serving a definitive sentence of 17 years in prison for sexually violating and abusing a Hong Kong follower, and sexually abused two other women, an Australian woman and a South Korean woman, between 2018 and 2021.

On October 8, the same court also ordered Jeong and JMS to pay compensation of around 370 million won (almost 250 thousand euros) to the three women for the damage suffered.

The JMS leader had already served ten years in prison between 2008 and 2018, after having been convicted of sexually violating and abusing several members of the sect, as well as for misappropriation.

Complaints made by former followers gained widespread international repercussion with the premiere in 2023 of the Netflix documentary series ‘In the Name of God: The Holy Betrayal [‘In the Name of God: A Divine Betrayal’], whose first three episodes address the case of the JMS.