Disgraced religious leader sentenced to 23 years for sexual assaults of multiple followers including Australian woman

A 78-year-old religious fringe leader accused of sexually assaulting multiple women including an Australian has just been sentenced to 23 years in prison.

WARNING: DISTRESSING CONTENT

A 78-year-old religious fringe group leader accused of sexually assaulting multiple women including an Australian has just been sentenced to 23 years in prison.

Jeong Myeong-seok, the South Korean-based leader of a controversial Christian sect called Providence, was found guilty of sexual assault and molestation on Friday afternoon AEDT time.

Providence was founded by Jeong in 1978, who proclaimed he was the messiah, and the movement has spread to more than 50 nations including in Australia.

The group has previously been the subject of multiple news.com.au investigations which found the organisation had infiltrated universities to recruit members, had forked out more than $1 million to open a church in the heart of Sydney and banned followers from wearing black, consuming coffee or eating ramen in an ultra-restrictive lifestyle.

News.com.au also spoke to Olivia*, a former Providence member from Melbourne, who alleged Jeong indecently and sexually assaulted her during a trip to the sect’s head quarters in Wolmyeongdong, in South Korea’s Chungnam Province, in 2018.

“I know that the (sect) will continue their operation unfortunately, but I feel so relieved that there will not be another victim of sexual assault by Jeong Myeong Seok,” Olivia told news.com.au in the wake of the sentencing.

Jeong is already a convicted rapist, having served a 10-year sentence for raping several female followers decades ago.

Although he was released from prison in 2018, Olivia and two other victims allege he began reoffending just months later.

The Daejeon District Court found him guilty of doing just that, and the court heard more than 23 separate instances of sexual violations had occurred February 2018 to September 2021.

The disgraced church leader’s 23 year sentence means he will most likely die in jail.

Olivia with her alleged perpetrator, Jeong Myeong-seok, when the Aussie woman visited him in South Korea.

Jeong Myeong-seok has just been sentenced to 23 years in prison.

Olivia said it had been a “long process” to bring justice to Jeong after he sexually assaulted her on more than one occasion and that “there were moments I wish I had never started” but she is glad with the outcome.

“I have had the most amazing and fearless people support me and support us as victims up until now, and I’m incredibly thankful to various media for giving us a platform to speak freely which I believe was part of the reason we could get to this point,” she said.

She called Providence “incredibly cruel” and added “so many people have been hurt because of it, and countless women are victims of Jeong Myeong Seok”.

During her time in the sect, Olivia claims Jeong made unwanted sexual advances towards her and indecently and sexually assaulted her five times when she went on a church-funded trip to South Korea from 2018 to 2019.

“It’s hard for me to even look back on it,” Olivia told news.com.au. “We were brainwashed to believe this is our one-on-one relationship with our husband.”

Worshippers are taught that they are brides of god and by extension, the brides of the sect’s leader and messiah, Jeong.

Olivia alleges Jeong indecently touched her twice and sexually touched her three times while she was staying at Providence’s head quarters in Wolmyeongdong, in South Korea’s Chungnam Province.

At the time, she was 27 while he was 73.

A graphic of so-called messiah Jeong Myeong-seok punching the devil.

Church members dressed as brides from about 10 years ago during a modelling photoshoot. Female church members were all seen as brides to Jeong.

She reported the alleged crime to South Korean authorities and spoke at a press conference in March last year demanding that charges be laid against Jeong.

Another woman from Hong Kong and a South Korean woman, also claimed they were victims of Jeong committing sexual assault.

News.com.au has contacted Providence for comment.

In a statement shared on their website from when Jeong was arrested over the allegations, Providence said although they wanted “to express our regret for this situation”, they denied all wrongdoing and called the allegations untrue.

‘So disgusting’

During a church-funded trip in July 2018 when followers from all over the world came to the Providence compound, including its Australian division, Olivia claims Jeong indecently touched her twice and sexually touched her three times.

The first alleged sexual incident occurred within a few weeks of her arrival in the Asian country in July 2018.

Jeong called Olivia into a private space and presented her with a new set of clothes. As she got undressed, she claims she was sexually assaulted.

The Wolmyeongdong compound in South Korea.

Providence members wearing bridal dresses at a modelling convention.

“I immediately went into shock,” she recalled. “The whole time my brain is thinking ‘what is going on, am I in a cult?’”

When the young woman raised concerns with other members of the church, they told her she should feel honoured that Jeong had treated her in that way.

They “told me that this is my blessing, he (Jeong) is my spiritual husband, then he’s my physical husband, so why can’t he do that (sexual acts)? That’s what a normal wife and husband do, I should feel blessed and thankful,” Olivia recalled.

Some time later, the same thing happened again, she alleges, this time in “the cave”, a man-made tunnel in Wolmyeongdong.

In the cave, Jeong also allegedly told her “I cannot have sex with you” and also asked her to touch his upper legs as they were leaving, calling them “honey legs”.

The final alleged sexual assault took place when he gifted her a pair of pyjamas.

Jeong also allegedly indecently assaulted Olivia twice before she left South Korea.

In October 2018, the elderly man gave Olivia a lift on a golf buggy on the way to a sermon and she claims he tried to unbutton her jeans.

“(Luckily) my jeans were just way too tight,” she alleged.

“I just think that was so disgusting, he was literally going to preach the holy word of god (afterwards).”

On another occasion, Olivia claims he touched her inner thighs over her clothes.

Last year news.com.au revealed that Providence had opened a church in the heart of Sydney, at 4/173-179 Broadway.

News.com.au also found evidence of Providence targeting universities in Sydney to recruit new members.

News.com.au has previously spoken to three former Australian members of Providence, one of whom was in the sect for more than a decade before becoming disillusioned with it after watching Jeong play a game of tennis.

When Lucy* watched Jeong play a game of tennis against one of his worshippers, she had an epiphany.

Although Jeong was in his mid-70s at the time, spectators celebrated every time he hit the ball, as if he was Ash Barty.

“They’d be cheering him. Every. Single. Shot. I’m standing there thinking ‘This is ridiculous’,” Lucy said.

In that moment it hit her. “I could tell he was a fake, it was all a sham,” she said.

Another ex-worshipper, Mia*, from Canberra, met Jeong while he was in jail and was made to lie to and hide from her worried parents before boarding a flight to South Korea to see the messiah in the flesh.

“They were incredibly strict,” the Canberran said to news.com.au, recalling her experience at the sect from a decade ago when she was in her late teens.

“We had to keep this Cheshire cat smiles on our faces, we couldn’t have negative thoughts, we were supposed to be incredibly happy because we’d found the truth.”

In what she describes as a “wild” incident, she was made to lie to and hide from her worried parents before boarding a flight to South Korea to meet Jeong.

Jeong was in his 70s at the time of the most recent sexual assaults.

Mia’s roommates, who were also church members, “made me hide in a closet while my father knocked at the door,” Mia recalled. “When one of them opened it, they pretended they couldn‘t speak any English, and said I wasn’t there.

“As soon as my parents left, they put me in the back seat of the van, covered me in a blanket and drove me.”

She was taken to an apartment in Sydney where she stayed for several days before travelling to South Korea and was instructed to tell her family she was in Perth.

A third Australian woman claimed she was made to give away a minimum of 10 per cent of her pay packet to the church as a tithe during her stint in the church.

Another ex-Providence member who previously spoke to news.com.au, Samantha*, gave away about $10,000 to the church in just a couple of years.

She claimed donations were tracked in an Excel spreadsheet where the church’s finance department could ensure members paid their dues.

“We had education where if you’re not giving a tithe then you’re robbing god,” another ex-member who did not want to be named told news.com.au.

A Providence spokesperson denied that financial contributions were compulsory.