CAGAYAN DE ORO, Philippines – Who is Maria de Leon, the septuagenarian who was sentenced for her role in an immigration fraud scheme that helped members of doomsday preacher Apollo Quiboloy‘s group remain in the United States?
On Tuesday, August 4, a US federal judge sentenced the 77-year-old Los Angeles-based paralegal to time she already served, crediting the roughly four months she spent in custody after her 2021 arrest. She posted bail after her arrest.
It was her guilty plea that gave US prosecutors a vital insider’s account of how followers of Quiboloy allegedly manipulated the American immigration system.
For years, De Leon’s work unfolded not from the pulpit of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ (KOJC) but through paperwork.
A former Quiboloy follower told Rappler on Friday, August 7, that De Leon was an “outsider” to the KOJC and that her dealings with the detained preacher’s group were limited to handling its immigration paperwork. She is known in the KOJC as “Liberty,” the name of her firm.
