Church officials accused of directing thousands of followers to join ruling party ahead of elections Lee Man-hee, the head of Shincheonji Church of Jesus, arrives at the Seoul Central District Court in Seocho-gu, Seoul, for a court hearing on his arrest on June 24. (Yonhap) South Korean prosecutors on Monday filed additional charges against the 95-year-old leader of a religious sect over an alleged yearslong effort to funnel his followers into a political party.A joint investigation team comprising prosecutors and police said Lee Man-hee, the founder of the Shincheonji Church of Jesus, was charged with pressuring followers to join the party and with interfering in the party's affairs. Lee is already in custody and awaiting trial after his arrest last month on related charges tied to the same investigation.Three other former Shincheonji officials, including the church's former No. 2 leader identified only by the surname Goh, were also charged and remain in detention. Four additional current and former church officials were charged without being taken into custody.Investigators say Lee directed followers to sign up as members of the People Power Party, South Korea's main conservative party, between 2021 and 2024 in an attempt to sway the outcomes of presidential and parliamentary primary elections.More than 56,000 Shincheonji members joined the party as a result, with waves of new members recorded ahead of the party's 2021 presidential primary, its 2023 leadership race and its 2024 parliamentary nominations.Prosecutors first filed charges last month tied to the 2021 recruitment push, then continued investigating before bringing the remaining charges on Monday. Under South Korean law, prosecutors have five years to bring charges over the earliest instances of the alleged scheme.Investigators said earlier that a former church official passed a list of the newly signed-up party members to a campaign aide to Yoon Suk Yeol, who won the party's 2021 presidential primary and became president the following year. No charges were brought over the exchange.Shincheonji, a religious movement founded by Lee in 1984, has long been described by mainstream Christian denominations as a cult, a characterization the group disputes.The sect came under intense scrutiny in 2020 after a member's coronavirus infection was linked to a large share of South Korea's early COVID-19 cases.Lee was later acquitted of charges that he obstructed the government's pandemic response, but was convicted of embezzlement in a separate case.