Filipino church leader is accused of sexual assault

A 31-year-old woman who claims she was trafficked to Hawaii says the televangelist founder of a Philippine-­based megachurch sexually assaulted her starting when she was a teenager assigned as the founder’s personal servant.

Kristina Angeles said in a recent court filing that Apollo Quiboloy, founder of Kingdom of Jesus Christ, the Name Above Every Name, sexually assaulted her in the Philippines and when she traveled with him out of the country.

Angeles also claims Felina Salinas, who runs the Hawaii chapter of the church, facilitated the sexual assaults of her and other females in the church, including girls as young as 11 years old.

Angeles said she joined the church, based in Davao City, Philippines, when she was 9 years old and became one of Quiboloy’s personal servants when she was 16.

Angeles says she arrived in Hawaii in October 2014 to solicit donations and fled in January 2015 because of the abuse she suffered at Salinas’ hands. She filed a report with Honolulu police accusing Salinas of assaulting her.

After leaving the church, Angeles was accused by another church member of sexually assaulting the church member’s 15-year-old daughter. Angeles claims the charges against her were trumped up to get even with her for leaving the church.

Angeles is awaiting trial in state court on sexual assault charges. Trial is scheduled for December.

Angeles is asking Circuit Judge Catherine Remigio to dismiss the case against her and has submitted numerous support documents, including recovered text messages.

The text messages were sent to Salinas by the church member with the 15-year-old daughter.

The Honolulu Star-Advertiser is not naming the church member because the alleged sexual assault victim is the member’s daughter.

In one text the church member complains about having to commit perjury.

“I cannot sleep thinking I have to lie in the (state) court. (I have not done that) ever in my life. It is shame to face to those jury to testify.”

In another text the member laments the possible punishment Angeles could suffer.

“Can u imagine that if they find guilty she (Angeles) will be in jail for 20 years.”

Federal investigators recovered the text messages from Salinas’ cellphone and turned them over to Angeles’ attorney.

The federal investigators are dealing with a separate case involving Quiboloy and Salinas and smuggling charges.

Investigators seized Salinas’ cellphone when they arrested her in February 2018 on a charge of attempting to smuggle hundreds of thousands of dollars of U.S. currency out of the country aboard a private jet headed to the Philippines.

Quiboloy was aboard the leased jet that U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials seized at Daniel K. Inouye International Airport. They also seized $335,000 in cash from luggage Salinas identified as hers, and Quiboloy was allowed to returned to the Philippines.

The money belongs to the church, according to the indictment charging Salinas with bulk cash smuggling and helping Quiboloy evade prosecution. Salinas was scheduled to stand trial next month.

Salinas’ lawyer, Michael Green, asked U.S. District Chief Judge J. Michael Seabright on Tuesday to push back the trial date because he has thousands of other text messages in two different Filipino languages to review and that he just received new information on the case.

The government informed Green last week that it intends to present testimony from Angeles accusing Salinas and Quiboloy of smuggling large sums of money out of the country before the February incident at the Honolulu airport.

Green said he also recently discovered that Angeles, who entered the country on a missionary visa, applied for asylum claiming to be a victim of sex trafficking.

“I just need to know everything she said,” he said.

Seabright rescheduled Salinas’ trial to February.

Two days after Salinas turned herself in to police in response to Angeles’ assault report, the church member identified in the recovered texts contacted police to report that Angeles had sexually assaulted her 15-year-old daughter.

Prosecutors never charged Salinas with assault. Angeles says they didn’t even investigate her claim. Prosecutors did, however, take the sexual assault allegations against Angeles to an Oahu grand jury, which returned an indictment.