Rotten Mango - #254: Korea’s Biggest Sex Grooming Cult With Over 100k Members - The JMS Church

Episode Date: April 23, 2023

Kim had heard the rumors of Pastor Jeong raping his female followers but he knew the devil was working hard to take down their Messiah. But one day, while working in the JMS church post office - Kim stumbled upon a mysterious package. He opened it up to find a hard drive and hundreds of nude photos of women he recognized from the church. Photos of women in various stages of undress. Videos of naked women screaming Pastor Jeong’s name, licking his picture, pleasuring themselves, and calling out for Pastor Jeong to come back to them… Kim realized all the “devil’s lies” were nothing but the truth. Pastor Jeong had talked about “saving” 10,000 female souls. Now, he realized all he wanted to do was rape 10,000 women. Experts say Pastor Jeong would come very close. Full Source Notes: rottenmangopodcast.com To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Kim was pretty excited. He had heard that he was being sent to Hong Kong to work directly under Pasteur Jung. He had been part of Jung's congregation for a little while now, and he always wondered, if I go to Hong Kong, what kind of big things is Pastor Jung gonna have me do? I mean, this is like a mission trip. Is he gonna have me pray for other people? Am I gonna watch as Pastor Jung cures cancer? I've heard all the stories of him curing cancer. He would literally touch someone and their cancer was just gone.

He's like a miracle worker. I mean, there were so many reasons that all the demons and all the devils wanted to take Pastor Zheng down. Maybe he would watch in real time how Pastor Zheng saved souls. Either way, Kim was excited to be of some sort of help in Hong Kong. But when he gets to Hong Kong, he realizes that his role there would be so much more important than he even originally thought. He just didn't know it yet. So Kim gets thrown into this mail room. That's his job now. He's gonna go through all of the letters that Pastor John receives from his followers. The letters are pouring in from all over the world. Pastor John is a very famous person.

He was practically a celebrity pastor at this point. There were letters of just pure devotion. People promising to spend their lives praising the Lord, praising God, praising Pastor John. There were letters begging Pastor John to pray for their sick relatives, to save their lives, or pray for them to pass the college entrance exam. So many letters. So many letters. so many letters. Kim would sort through them on a daily basis. And one day he sees this package

in the little mountain of letters he's going through. And it looked like one of those poster tubes, you know how you send photos and posters through like those tubes, hard cardboard tubes. And he was intrigued. He opened it. He probably shouldn't have, but he was curious. He opened it. He probably shouldn't have, but he was curious. He opened it and just hundreds of pictures spilled out

of naked female followers of naked woman. They were posing and doing explicit things to themselves. They were completely nude and licking photographs of Pastor Jung. They were posing together with one another, uncloed. They were in bathtubs doing things, and first of all, he was shocked when he saw these photos. But later on, he would find a hard drive.

And this hard drive was filled with videos. Videos of these same female followers that he knew were church members that were in South Korea. And these female church members were naked and posing with each other. They were in bathtubs together screaming, I love you, our husband. I love you. Our Lord must be so tired. We wish you could join us.

They would be in videos posing in lingerie and doing things to themselves on beds and Kim was shaken up because the whole premise of his church of Pastor Jung's church and all of his teachings was that sex was the original sin. Sex was forbidden. So what was going on? Kim had heard for years, I mean there were rumors that Pastor Zhang had been sexually assaulting his female followers But he was always told these are the lies that the devil is making up to try and take down Pastor Zhang They're not true, but they were true and now Kim realized when Pastor Zhang had said that his ultimate goal as a pastor

was to save the souls of 10,000 young woman What he meant was he wanted to rape 10,000 women It is believed that pastor Zhang came very very close to his school As always full show notes are available at rottenminglepodcast.com A huge source for this episode was a Netflix documentary by the name of, in the name of God, Holy Betrayal. It's been getting so much attention for a lot of reasons. I think the source material itself is so explosive and it's almost salacious, it's a lot. But one of the producers of the show has been getting stalked and threatened since the release of this Netflix series,

even before the series was released. There was a trailer that went up. There was news that this was going to air. There was a legal battle in South Korea trying to stop it, trying to prevent this Netflix series from airing. So it's a lot and it's so scary to the point where we just recently had a trip to South Korea. I have been getting this request for this case for the past three weeks and I just was so terrified to cover it while I was in Korea or like right before Korea, it was terrifying.

So this has been a highly requested case that we're talking about today. And before we get into it, a quick disclaimer. I say this a million times, okay? But like one bad religious person does not mean the whole religion is bad. As someone who has an incredibly mild case of religious drama compared to what we're talking about today, as someone who is not religious at all, I can still acknowledge that

I think religion is a beautiful thing when it's practiced the way it's supposed to be. I think religions can bring people together. I think it can bring peace and purpose into communities. So with that being said, this man's actions in no way reflect on the Christian community as a whole or really any other religion. So with that being said, there was a war waging. There was a war between two different parties and this is a war that we've never even heard of. It was the war of Exodus and all the female victims of the JMS Church. JMS standing for Jesus Morningstar

Church. And then you had the JMS Church. So you had these two parties that were just at war. So on one hand, on the Exodus side, you have countless victim testimonies. There were literal audio clips. Audio recordings, the victim had taken while she was being sexually assaulted, where the pastor is saying, disgusting, humiliating things to her, asking her questions about her sexuality. Like, they've got mountains and mountains of evidence they have police reports of kidnappings that had taken place. They have police reports of assaults and just so much. And then on the other side, on JMS aside, you had the Messiah, the prophet, the second coming of Jesus, the man who cured cancer, the man who predicted presidential elections, the man who said, let it snow and it snowed. It's a war that's not even just in South Korea.

This war went from Taiwan to Hong Kong, mainland China, Malaysia, Australia, New Zealand. It was like a global war, and it seems like it's still raging on to this day. So who is the Messiah? Who is Pastor Zhang? Who is the center of JMS church? March 16th, 1945. Objectively was not a good day, okay? World War II is still raging. The Allied powers bombed this historic town in Germany, and I think like 5,000 people were killed.

And then in South Korea, Tongmyung South was born. I say this with the risk of sounding mean, but literally nobody cared that he was born. Like babies are born on a daily basis. This one was not particularly special in any way. It's not like he was born and people were celebrating like, oh my god, look at this baby. It's not like he was born and then there were like whispers. Oh my god, this baby is going to be something crazy when he grows up. Like there was nothing. Literally nobody cared that Jung was born

into a poor family in the mountains of South Korea. Far from all the big cities, far from Seoul, he was the third son of Seven Ziblings. So he grew up with five brothers and a sister. So back then, it was kind of customary for poor families in rural areas to have tons of children because children translated to employees. That's like the sentiment.

And it applied here. Jung only graduated elementary school before he dropped out to tend to his family's farm. So he's growing up working on the farm and one morning when he's six years old. Some Christian missionaries come to the village. They're singing gospels, they're passing out bibles, and they give a Bible to Jung. And he's just like mesmerized by these

wafer thin little pages. The sound that the pages made when he would turn them, the smell, okay, bibles have a smell. Most books have a smell, but bibles have a very distinct smell. I grew up around this smell. It's a pleasant smell if you like the smell of books, but the smell of it and all the little stories depicted in the book He was obsessed. He fell in love with the Bible. I honestly don't know what kind of free time Jung had Maybe his siblings helped a lot at the farm, but Jung claimed that he read the Bible cover to cover cover to cover 2000 times. How long does that take usually? My grandpa was super religious and he wrote,

re-wrote like transcribed the Bible, cover to cover three times for his three children and that took like two decades. To be fair, he wasn't doing it like nonstop, like a full-time job, but it takes a while. The Bible is this big and the font is this small But he said he read it two Thousand times he claimed that he would climb up to the little mountain find a nice little secluded grassy patch

He would plop down on there and just read the freaking Bible He said the mountain was his classroom, the Bible, his teacher. By the time he was 19, he starts working as a Sunday school teacher. And by the time that he was 20, he was going to nearby towns to try and spread the word of God. But when he turned 21, he gets drafted into the military to fight in Vietnam. Side note, most of what we know about Pastor Zhang's childhood is told by Zhang. So I'm going to take it with a grain of salt.

Zhang said that he went into the military and he was so obsessed with his Christian ideals, his Christian beliefs that he refused to kill a single person during his entire service. He was literally in Vietnam for the Vietnam War. He said he refused to kill a single person, just flat out refused. Which I guess is kind of admirable, right? But he also said that he would just capture people, tie them up and leave them. If you think about it.

Leave them to die or? Yeah, basically to starve to death. If you really think about it, tying someone up and leaving them to starve, potentially starve to death, is just as cruel. It's actually more. More scroll, yeah. But Chang was like, what a good Christian day.

And he would just pat himself on the back and walk away. While he was in the military, he was able to save up a lot of money, which he put to use the second that he got out. He bought this local church and he starts rebuilding it, renovating it. He would, of course, be the de facto leader later. But while he's renovating, he joins another church called the Union Church. They kicked him out. This church was like, your interpretation of the Bible is unhinged. Like, you are way

too radical. I don't know what you're doing, but you could have get out of here. We don't like this. So he decides, these villagers, they don't know me. They're not progressive enough. They're not city folk. You know what I need to do? I need to be around more open minded people. I'm going to move to Tosar where I can have these intellectual conversations. So he moves to Tosar and at this point he burned through all of his money. So he's literally moving there with his Bible and $300 in his pocket. He starts in this little tiny church, Jesus Morning Star Church, JMS. It's known as Providence, the Providence Church,

and other parts of the world like Australia, New Zealand, but it's the same church. And it was in a small little studio apartment. And it was a very humble beginning for the start of JMS church, but Jung had some big old dreams, okay. He wanted to recruit the top university students from around South Korea to join his church. He was sick of congregations filled with old

people, families and all these elderly people. He wanted young fresh minds. Like he wanted young people to gather at his church, have a blast where they could play basketball and then have discussions about the board. So you know where he goes? He goes to his whole day. This is like the Harvard of South Korea. He recruits one student. And that student goes to Yonsei Day,

like the Yale of South Korea. recruits a student from Yonsei Day, then another university student. And it just becomes like this domino effect that was fueled by word of mouth. By the end of the year JMS church would have a presence in all of Korea's top universities and Jung would do tours at these universities

Like as if he's like some sort of motivational speakers slash super stars slash celebrity He would do tours at like 18 of the biggest universities in Seoul He would even do national tours where he visited ten separate cities to go meet with his followers. JMS at one point was filled with the top minds of Korea, like the future generation. So just think of a church where all of the Ivy League students are part of the congregation. Honestly, I would be intimidated. I would even be intimidated to recruit an Ivy League student into my church because these are the crème d'oeuvre of the new generation. These are business majors, biology majors, chemistry majors, economic majors. No other church in South Korea had this many college students,

especially of the elite kind, 90% of JMS at the time were university students. And just to cover all the basis, you know your question, how do you convert that many university students? I'm not saying that higher levels of education have correlations with being able to have faith or not, but I imagine if these students asked me how to scientifically explain the Bible, I'd probably pee myself, okay? I would probably not have a good time, but that's where a lot of context comes into play. JMS church was at the right place playing the Bible? I'd probably pee myself, okay? I would probably not have a good time, but that's where a lot of context comes into play.

JMS church was at the right place at the right time. So he started recruiting university students in the 1980s and the 1990s. And South Korea in the 80s was pure chaos. Like hell had broken loose. There was political unrest. Endless protests were being had. There was a dictator, yeah, there wasn't a president

at the time in the 80s, which doesn't really seem that far along ago. There was a dictator at the time who was going around killing anyone who was against him. People in Korea were lost. The citizens just wanted to feel purpose. They wanted to feel like they knew where they stood in this shaky world, especially young people.

They felt like they had this fire in them, you know, to want to belong to something to try and fight for a better future. So it's set that in South Korea at this time. The younger generations, they started breaking off into these two main groups. One group were students that were joining political activist groups. So these groups focused on talking about politics. They were basically little politicians. They were debating politics, demonstrating, organizing protests.

Then the other group of students would turn to religion to try and make sense of things. But a lot of these top university students, they did not like a lot of churches. Because they're like, you can't argue with me about evolution. Like, that doesn't make sense to me. I literally studied this. Like, you don't know what you're saying, right? But Pastor Zhang was known to love science. That's what he claimed, okay?

He said that the Bible is not necessarily verbatim the truth. Like, a lot of different churches interpret it. He said the Bible is a giant metaphor. And he would always be able to bring science into his explanations of everything. And I say quote scientific, like, because I'm sure in the beginning, it was a lot more scientific, but slowly over the years, it becomes incredibly unhinged and honestly insane if I'm being honest with you. So for the time being, Pastor Jung, the leader of JMS, was praised by these university students

for being logical, rational, scientific, not denying science or evolution, he was known as being very progressive. He explained, again, Bible is a metaphor. You don't have to take these stories literally. He would even say things like, in this passage, it says, Jesus came down on a cloud. Do you guys really passage, it says, Jesus came down on a cloud.

Do you guys really believe that? He didn't come down on a cloud. Let's be real. It's like, it's a metaphor, you know? So these kids are like, I like it. I like that a lot, okay? I like you pastor, John. They really liked pastor, John. They were honestly amazed when they found out that he only had an elementary school education. I mean, they were confused how he could grasp such complex metaphors that they were having difficulties with. He understood everything. He answered questions that the Catholic church and Protestant churches had a hard time answering.

And none of these students just went to church. Okay, none of these university students would show up on a Sunday, sing a couple songs, he, he, he, he, and leave. These students were so dedicated to the JMS Church. They would participate in all of the church activities. If you guys have never been to a Korean church in the States before, I don't know if other churches do this, but it's very common for the church to turn into a community hub of

sorts. I remember growing up, there were these basketball competitions, little church Olympics, like talent shows that were held by the church. It wouldn't just be our church members attending. Members of other churches would attend our events and then we would go to their events and it just became this big social event. JMS did that, but they took it to a whole new level. It was basically a Coachella, but religious. They would have these massive events and gatherings and parades where everyone from every school, all the top universities were invited to have a weekend playing soccer, volleyball, organized games, organized competitions. Each university

would even have their own cheerleaders walk in the parade. It felt more like a college football game than it felt like church. Modesty. He made it really cool. So like, very fun. Even if you weren't religious, you almost wanted to go because you're like, oh, my friends are going.

Modesty was kind of out the window, which I think is totally fine. I personally don't see why you need to dress a certain way just because you're religious, but there were like modeling competitions at these events, cheerleaders wearing not skimpy outfits per se, but just to give you an idea. If I ever wore that to church when I was growing up,

I would be sent home and called a devil's slot, okay? And this was back in the days in Korea. So it's 10 times worse. Yeah, even crazier, like more unheard of of like those are the types of outfits people were wearing It felt more like a kpop concert in some aspects It seemed like a lot of fun again people just wanted to go even if you weren't religious It was great marketing if you ask me but everything comes at the price These events are not free to run in fact

It probably takes a lot of money to host even just one event. University students are not known for being loaded. They're not known for having just so much cash, so how is the church affording all of this and more? Feeding the poor. That's how. University students would spend their weekends. On the streets in Seoul, asking for donations to feed the poor. They would sell water purifiers, bags of peanut, water bottles, like literally whatever you could think of, they were selling it. They would say, hey, I'm fundraising for the JMS church to feed the poor. On behalf of the poor, would you guys like to buy this water purifier? So many people were like, oh my gosh, tell me, but you could just hold it.

You're religion... give me three water purifiers. At the end of the day, they would rush back to Pastor Jung, hand over all the money that they collected, who does hold it, you're religion, give me three water purifiers. At the end of the day, they would rush back to pass their junk, hand over all the money that they collected. And this is how the university students spent their weekend. And what does junk do with all this money?

Does he feed the poor? He bought him our sadies. A lot of his followers kind of raised their eyebrows at that one, but they thought, you know, he works so hard. He works tirelessly to spread the word of God and to save humanity. Maybe if this car brings him even an ounce of joy or comfort so that he can keep doing what he does, like, who are we to question him? How else is he going to travel from his 250 different churches without his Mercedes?

At this point, Pastor John had 250 churches. In South Korea, 250 churches. A former follower said, well, now I know that I was performing slave labor, but back then, I thought I was devoting myself to the Lord. It probably didn't hurt that John, like most cult leaders, was surrounded by power and fame, and he was very convincing and charismatic.

Like he had a way of making you feel special. One follower remembers he was so nervous to meet Jung for the first time. Everyone around him had spoken of Jung like he was some god, like he was some sort of celebrity. And then when he finally meets with Jung, Jung looks at him without even skipping a beat. There's no awkwardness, there's no, oh, I'm so intimidated.

He just grabs the followers' hand and says, I've been expecting you. You shut up to me in my dream. And this guy feels like, oh my God, this guy is, Zhang is recognizing me. He sees me. I'm special. I feel saved. So they, the followers, just like Jung, they wanted to save more people, they wanted to save souls. Especially beautiful young women that were over 5 feet

6 inches tall. Jung told his followers to specifically recruit and save the souls of 5 feet 6 inch tall women that were young and attractive. He said they need the most saving. Trust me. What does he say that I'm beautiful? Yeah. So much confidence. Yeah. Side note, there was a victim who said that the way that she was recruited into this cult was bizarre. I do want to mention that South Korea may or may not have a little bit of a cult

problem, but it made me it's not that big of a problem because I wasn't approached by a cult this time that I went. But if you are a foreigner visiting South Korea and you see someone come up to you on the street and tell you how pretty you are, how you're glowing, or how nice you look or ask you to give them directions. You're being recruited into a cult most likely. So I would just say, well, there's a new trend of what you should say. There's like a whole trending career of like everyone asking, what are you listening to right now? And they say new jeans hype boy.

So they say when you're getting recruited into a cult, just say, oh, new jeans hype boy and walk away. It's just messing with a lot of cult leaders, I tell you. So just be where a woman approaches this victim on the street. And it's like, oh my God, you're glowing. You're so pretty, right? But this time it wasn't as creepy because the woman, so JMS cult, most of their members are young. Most other cults, they're like adjuma, they're like middle aged woman who are coming up to you on the street.

Like, you're so pretty, you're so pretty. You automatically are kind of like, this is weird. But when this young college girl that's about your age is trying to befriend you on the street and she's like you're so pretty. Start feeling like maybe this is my friend. But this girl tells the victim, hey so how tall are you? What's really random? Honestly I don't know, I haven't measured myself like maybe 5-5, like little under 5-6. Oh, okay, so you're basically 5-6.

I guess you could say that, that's so... yeah, sure. And she's like, okay, good, why do you follow me? It's just so bizarre. So Jung had this absolute fixation on Taoyong woman, preferably with pale white skin, and he wanted to rape as many of them as possible. As Jung's popularity grew, so did his arrogance and his fascination with these women. He just becomes more and more ballsy. He was always seen surrounded by a swarm of young, beautiful women, which is kind of odd

for a church leader. In any other context, if you saw Jung out and about, you would think he's like an old-time trot singer, or like an older actor that has fan girls surrounding him, like not a pastor, not in a million years, what I think that's a church leader. But the indoctrination was already so deep at this point. His followers believed that not only was he right, he was above them, wholelier than them, no more than them, they started to suspect that he was the Messiah. Let me tell you why.

Well, first, Jung started openly telling everyone that he was the Messiah, but that's not why, okay? He was here, he said, to complete the testament. He was here to fulfill the prophecy, in fact, because he was fulfilling the last prophecy, Jung told his followers that he had a higher status than Jesus Christ himself. And in order to prove this,

he did some weird calculations in his head. So he pulled some random dates and numbers from the Bible, and he said, what is 1446 plus 500 years? 1946. Yeah, that's the year of Luther's death plus 500 years. 1946. Yeah, the 500 or that's the year of Luther's death plus 500 years, which means the new Messiah would be born 1945, 1946, depending on the lunar New Year. It's just, you know, it's just funny because yes, when I was born

1945, which is kind of strange considering that 2.9 million babies were born in 1945 So I don't know why that made him special and to top it all off He was born March 16th 1945 he argued that his birthday was 316 March 16 and that stood for John 316 The verse in the Bible John 316 reads The verse in the Bible, John 316 reads, For God still loved the world, he gave his one and only son. Therefore, if you are doing the mental cartwheels that Jung was doing,

Jung is God's one and only son. Jung is Jesus. I just want to add another disclaimer here. It sounds absolutely unhinged and far-fetched from the outside perspective. Like it's almost laughable to us, right? How dumb it sounds. It sounds like those little kids that have been dating for the first time and they're like, you were born on this day.

I was born on this day, added up, get this number divided by pi and you know what the number eight is? You know what else is eight? The words I love you is eight letters, exactly. Like that's what it sounds like. But you have to remember, no cult starts like this. Like you don't just walk into the doors of a church and this man is up there like divided by pie, and I'm 1945.

Like this is not how it starts. This is after months of listening to sermons that make perfect logical sense in your head. You're surrounded by this infectious energy of people being so positive and welcoming and accepting and so excited about something. You feel like you have this purpose in life and you feel like your part is something bigger than yourself.

This is after months of you hearing about the miracles that he's performed and you even see bits and pieces of evidence of it. It's not even just rumors. He prayed for snow in front of the whole church. There was no chance of snow that day or even the next day. Even the news whether forecasters never mentioned snow. Well, what do you know? If frickin' snowed. Puzzling. But these types of things keep happening. He predicted who the next president of South Korea would be not only that He predicted how each candidate would pull and how they would rank before the rankings were released

He predicted with a hundred percent accuracy then you hear about another situation You see that guy over there that guy and his mom his mom was diagnosed with terminal cancer The doctors gave her a few weeks to live. The son begged Pastor Jung to pray for his mother. Pastor Jung went to see the sick mother. Touched her and said, you will live. Spin yours. She's still alive. But that's not all.

One time this woman was diagnosed with cancer, okay? She runs up to Pastor Jung, throws herself at his feet, crying, begging, like, like you can let me go. Please, I need to be cancer-free. I've got all these things I need to do in my life before." He said, you are cancer-free. She gets a call from the doctors the next day, saying, hey, I'm so sorry. I think we misread your charts.

You do not have cancer. You're cancer-free? So the victims are slowly, carefully, methodically indoctrinated, that when they get to the point of him calling himself the Messiah, it makes logical sense in their mind. So please, let's just be careful about what we say about the victims in this case. I saw a lot of online discourse about how, oh my God, I would never fall for something like this. Like how do people actually believe this?

I'm a firm believer, anyone. Like you, him, me, like literally anyone can fall victim to a cult, given the right circumstance, right timing, like right place in your life, it's scary. So side note, if you're wondering how Jung was able to pull off so many miracles, maybe he was the Messiah.

I'm not sure about all of them. I don't have the answers to all of them. But I don't know, who knows, maybe Jung spread some of these rumors himself. But remember that woman, that God cancer, and then she got the call immediately after the day after saying that, hey, we've misread your charts? I'm sure it didn't hurt that her doctor was also a member of JMS So whether the whole thing was a little set up to have a miracle happen Well, the doctor was like you have cancer just kidding. It was all a set up for a miracle or

If maybe the doctor was like maybe she won't notice she has cancer if I just lie and say she doesn't have cancer anymore It's just weird What you watch depends on what kind of major in sometimes your craving comedies like friends and have cancer anymore. It's just weird. What you watch depends on what kind of majoring. Sometimes you're craving comedies like friends or South Park and sometimes you're more into dramas like HBO's Succession and House of the Dragon. There's also cooking shows like Chopped and Beat Bobby Flay and even movies like The Lord of the Rings and Shazam, Fury of the Gods.

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Just visit the Progressive website to quote with all the coverage you want. You'll see Progressive's it is. Just visit the progressive website to quote with all the coverages you want. You'll see Progressive's direct rate, then their tool will provide options from other companies so you can compare. All you need to do is choose the rate and coverage you like. Quote today at Progressive.com to join the over 29 million drivers who trust progressive. Progressive casualty insurance company and affiliates comparison rates not available in all states or situations, prices vary based on how you buy. Also, Zhang claimed that he studied medicine in his free time for funzies for the past 40 years, and he said that he was more than well equipped to cure a simple thing like cancer. As for the presidential election predictions, it's unclear to the stay how he was able to predict the rankings of every candidate. We don't know if he knew

someone on the inside we don't know. But he was able to. Being the new Messiah, Jung decides to make his hometown, his village in the mountains is the new Jerusalem he said. This is going to be the sacred place where people from all over the world are going to come and worship at my feet. He even promoted this place in massive newspapers like the Korea Post, encouraging religious tourism to the mountains. He starts using church funds to build this massive compound in the mountains. Thousands of followers would gather their tent out, intense in the mountains, to listen to him preach, to be in his presence, to attend events that were like the Minneapolis Olympics. Modeling competitions, dancing and singing competitions held by JMS Church.

It was a lot. It's like an Olympics Coachella burning man mashed together with heavy religious overtones. He's a literal celebrity at this point. He had tours, nationwide tours, to go meet with more followers and I'm serious like this man took himself so utterly seriously. He would throw flowers into crowds of followers and they would serious like this man took himself so utterly seriously, he would throw flowers into crowds of followers and they would just be like scrambling at the ground to pick up the flowers.

People would be holding up signs like I love you, Jung! Everywhere he went, to meet with him one-on-one was nearly impossible. He's constantly surrounded by his young beautiful entourage. Even CM and person people were star struck, they felt honored to be breathing the same air as him. Some followers were even lucky enough to be asked to live on sight in one of the compounds. These followers were coincidentally all attractive young women that were over five feet six inches tall.

Their living conditions were deplorable, vaguely reminiscent of sardines shoved into a tin can. They were crammed into this tiny little trailer with no privacy, no personal space, absolutely nothing, but they were told over and over again. You are so lucky to be here. You should be grateful that you can live at such a holy place. Not many can say that. Like, are they their long-term or? As long as a Jung decides,

somewhere more long-term than others. And that leads us to the God's Brides, the Lord's Brides. We've talked a lot about sex cults, and this one is a little different. One principal teaching at JMS Church was that celibacy was the way to save humanity. Like no sex is the way to save the future of humankind. Even after marriage, nobody should be having sex really. It just wasn't allowed, you know. One of Jung's most famous interpretations was the story of Adam and Eve. He claimed that the apple that

Eve ate was a metaphor for sex, which means, Jung was going to save the world from all their sins, all the corruption, by forbidding people from having sex the original sin. So if you have sex with anyone,

you are betraying the Lord. So no, baby, see, there's a one, baby's anymore? He like has to allow it, because there are a lot of babies that are born into this cult. But I think most of them, I don't think most people got married once they were in the cult. Typically, it's married couples who joined the cult. That's another sad thing about this is a lot of people gave their lives to this cult for decades. Never got married, never started a family because of his teachings.

Some married couples would become celibate. Young university students were indoctrinated, and now they refused to get married, or even date because they didn't want to betray the Lord. I mean, they were just thinking about the effects of all of this. And I don't want to say that sex is everything. But the fact that these young students refused to even consider starting families or getting married because they felt this intense fear that they were going to go to hell for it is just really heartbreaking. So nobody is allowed to have sex. Except

of course, of course, Jung! He claimed he was the Messiah. Therefore, he was the pure Adam. And by having sex with women, he was showering women with God's love through his body. His body was a tool. It's not that he wanted to do this. It's not that he wanted to have sex with women, but he did it for the greater purpose of saving the world. He preached that he himself was suffering by doing this. He was suffering. He was exhausted by using his body

as a way of giving God's love. And his followers should suffer for him as well. Suffering was noble. Female followers were encouraged to take cold showers and pray multiple times a day. He even instructed everyone to pray in his name instead of Jesus' name. One former follower remembered he had went home one day. His parents are not in the cult, so it's just him or the church.

Sorry, I got to stop saying cult before they come from me. His parents were not in the church, and he's home one day praying out loud. And at the end, he said in Jung's name, we pray instead of in Jesus' name, we pray. And his mom stopped what she was doing. She frozen, said, what the hell did you just say? Like, why are you praying in some random man's name? Followers were instructed to cut ties

with the outside world or people who didn't understand. They were encouraged to lie to their families, to their parents. They were told that these non-believers, they can't tell what the truth is. Even if you tell them the truth, they won't believe you. Our truth is higher than them. So things are really amping up

and it's gonna take a really, really dark turn. So the Brides, let's talk about victim A. Victim A was at a JMS volleyball game that Jung was playing in. Nobody was particularly rooting for one team or another. They were basically just rooting for Jung. Okay, it's like a volleyball game. All the girls are on the sidelines, like, ahh, past your Jung. And Vick to me is on the sideline, like, yay, past your Jung. And she's cheering as hard as she can. And she thought she was imagining it at first.

But Jung kept looking over at her while he's playing the game, like glancing at her. And it made her feel uncomfortable. Like she thought that was kind of odd. But after the volleyball game, she forgot about it. And since this is in the mountains, and she wasn't one of the lucky ones to live there, she was setting a pretend, you know, follow her sleep in the tent while they're visiting. She's setting a prelittle tent and one of these unease. So, unease means like older sister, but it's not biological older sister. One of these unease came in and they were called informants in the JMS church.

They're basically female followers that were right hand women to junk. Their main job was to recruit and indoctrinate other beautiful young women and bring them to junk to be raped. One of the unease opens up the tent and tells her, hey, like Pastor Jung wants to see you. Thick Dimae is confused, nervous, kind of excited.

She didn't suspect anything weird or bad was going to happen to her. She was hoping to get acceptance and blessings. Maybe she would get prayed for. She was so nervous. She was intimidated by this guy. I mean, the way that he was talked about, it's like he was greater than God. I mean, the power and balance here is insane. She goes to the building that Jung is in, and there's a line of girls outside all waiting to go see Pastor Jung. And the only says,

you can go in first, since you're new. So, Victa May walks past all the girls, opens the doors, to see Pastor Jung, who's sitting down and he tells her, come here, sit next to me. She sits down next to him and she's just dar-struck. Her heart is beating so fast, she couldn't believe that she was sitting next to the Lord, she had no idea what was going to happen, like is he going to pray for her, was he going to help her family teach her something that would open up her mind? He starts touching her thighs, telling her to come closer,

and she just remembered his like hot breath on her neck, and she was so uncomfortable and she didn't understand like, is this what the Lord does? He starts whispering in her ear that she was Lord's masterpiece. He instructed her to stand up and pose for him, and the reasoning was, he wanted her to be the Lord's cheerleader, but cheerleaders aren't allowed to have bow legs, which means the legs bend out. They were supposed to have straight legs. So he's like, I need to check your legs.

He checks her legs and says, the Lord will be proud of you. He kept calling her beautiful. And when she sat back down next to him, he aggressively stuck his hands in her shirt and started gropeing her. He closed his eyes and said, the Lord is instructing me right now to check for lumps in your breast to make sure that you don't have cancer.

It was incredibly painful, but she had heard and she had been groomed to expect these medical exams. In fact, she was told that if she were ever examined by him, by him himself, she should be grateful. It was painful, it didn't feel right, but she just thought maybe it's because it's my first time, I don't know, like I'm supposed to be grateful for this, he's tracking for cancer, he had cured cancer so that makes sense. Who was she to say no?

So even if everything in her gut told her to scream and run out of there, it was like this mental war that she was fighting, like a battle in her mind. Before she could react, he pushes her down on the bed so she's laying flat on her back, and without warning, he tells her that he needs to examine her uterus. He said that the Lord needs to make sure that she doesn't have any cyst. She was terrified. She saw him lick his fingers and announce, the Lord is examining you. And you can imagine what happened next Victor May was in a lot of pain She said that she closed her eyes and looked away and she kept telling him please it's painful

Basically telling him to stop but he responds very casually It always hurts the first time. She didn't understand what that meant. I mean, the first time I'm being examined, like, I don't get it. So she looks down. He was full on assaulting her, full on our wording her. She said that she frozen fear and she was so confused. And then he starts getting aggressive and biting her everywhere. And it was just so violent. He kept telling her while he's doing this, that she's God's bride now. Literally, while assaulting her, he also continues to tell her, you are no longer allowed

to look at other men. You are no longer allowed to think about other men because you are God's bride now. If you were ever to marry another man or even think about a man, your private parts would be mutilated. If you ever have children with a man, they will be deformed. Side note, this is something that John told all of the brides. They believed it because why wouldn't they? They were terrified and they prayed.

They prayed to God that they would never be interested in anyone but the Lord. It was so ingrained in them, one victim even started self-identifying as a lesbian because she was so scared of the prospect of falling in love with a man. A lot of girls said that they struggled. It's nearly impossible for them to want to be with John, aka the Lord, so they would pray at night praying that they would have the tools to love him the way that they were supposed to.

They would punish themselves when they didn't feel love for Zhang in the sexual sense. They get so heartbreaking hearing that like the victim said they prayed and prayed but it was just so disgusting, painful and traumatizing. They thought something was wrong with them. Zhang would assault them and make them call him opa, honey, deer. He told them that they can never think about other men. He would say incredibly unholy, vulgar, disgusting things while he was assaulting them, but then he would claim in the same breath that this was God's love. So the victims are just so confused. They felt that they were confused, though, because they weren't good enough believers, like they

weren't good enough followers. So victim may run outside after the assault and runs straight into the onion that had brought her here and Victa May is looking at her like, please, you need to explain the situation because I'm so confused, I'm so traumatized, but the onion just smiles and congratulates her. She said, remember, we can only love past her young now. We are his brides. How was it?

Victa May was shocked. She just did the same thing happen to you? And she responds, you might not understand it right now, but in some time everything will start to make sense. The only proceeds to tell her that these examinations, that's what they were calling these assaults, these exams were important.

He had already detected serious diseases and cancers during these examinations. He had already saved lives. This was a these examinations. He had already saved lives. This was a good thing that Pastor Jung was being so proactive. All the girls that get personal exams should be grateful. Some girls would confide in the unease and say, you know, I'm just really confused. I felt like that was right.

They would say, of course it's confusing. I was confused my first time too, but it's the Lord's love, you're going to soon realize that. Now before we go and attack all of these uneas, I think it's just really complicated. I need to give you a bit more context. All of the gods' brides, they started as victims, and I think that they are still victims at the end of this. But one of the biggest roles that you get as a bride is to bring more brides to Zhang.

They all got brainwashed that all of these brides were being purified, they were being saved. So why wouldn't you want to save fellow women? They were literally brainwashed into thinking this. They were saving these girls, they were doing the Lord's work, they were saving the world. One of the victims slash on these said, when you're his bride, he might not want you anymore.

Zhang always wanted younger and younger woman, and you're getting older. So you bring him beautiful young woman and you get rewarded. You feel like you're doing something for the world, for the Lord, for the church. You start to feel important. Sometimes you can even be promoted as a minister or priest inside the church. And that is how victims turn into perpetrators. So a lot of these on these would come out later and say that they regretted everything. They said, you know, it's confusing because you're a victim and then later you're a perpetrator.

You create another victim and then they become a perpetrator and it's like this vicious cycle. And when you're inside the cycle, you can't even see it. But when you get out of it, you start questioning yourself like, I don't even know if I was a victim or a perpetrator in all of this. Am I a victim? Or am I the most evil person ever? All of the girls feel guilty for becoming unease in a sense. They blame themselves afterwards, but they also blame themselves while it was happening. They thought that all this guilt that they had for being an onni was because they weren't good enough for the role

They felt like they just had more to learn So again, I think that all these girls were victims And a lot of these girls were so indoctrinated They actually legally changed their last name to Jung To show that they were committed to being God's Brides Victims stated that they were so committed they would go into his room Four or five girls at a time sometimes 10 to 15 and he would assault them all at once One by one one victims at the most she's seen was about 30 women being assaulted at once

They were told in order to enter heaven because Eve is the original center, right? They need to purify themselves from the sense of woman kind, basically, Eve. And the only way was to let junk assault them. They didn't say it like that, but they said, you know, make love with the second Messiah. And it's just sick. He would assault woman on the basis of the premise that tens of thousands of years ago, allegedly, a woman picked an apple off a tree and ate it. And now every woman needs to be. Once they were assaulted, they were considered property of the second Messiah. They were told that if they ever betrayed him by even looking at another man, they would fall to the greatest steps of health forever and their souls would rot.

Sometimes the girls would be instructed to help wash him in the shower, and he would force his entire bed to be filled with women at night. In the middle of the night he would just wake up and pull pull girls on top of him to assault It's that that sometimes he assaulted 50 women in one day He would okay, so he would assault them But he wouldn't release if that makes sense and it was clear that this whole thing was just about power and abuse That's all it ever was the victim said it was more like he was marking his territory. He would be assaulting you, claiming you as his, and then move on.

Sometimes brides weren't even picked to be purified by Jung. They were just told their life purpose, their godly duty was to bring Jung a fresh supply of woman, and they would be rewarded if they did. And a lot of this was hidden in plain sight. So you know those like soccer games and events and festivals they would have? Well, Jung would score. Oh, this is another thing about the soccer games. Jung would score 60 to 120 goals in one soccer game. The world record held by one professional soccer player

is 13 goals in one game. So is this guy messy, reincarnated, or what? No. One game would go on for five to six hours and everyone would just let him score. His opponents, I mean, people would literally see the goalie jumping, pretending to block the ball, but they would fall on the opposite way of where the ball was going. They were just letting him win. So for five to six hours, there were cheerleaders on the sidelines, just cheering him on, screaming his name, bringing him water, wiping off his sweat. And in the end, an unyear or two would go around, pick some cheerleaders, tell them to go to the bathroom and wait for junk because he was almost done. They would

wait in the showers where they would be forced to wash him and they would be assaulted by him. Side note, what happens if a victim falls pregnant? One victim said that she straight up asked Jung that she was worried and she said, what happens if we're engaging in activities and I fall pregnant with the Lord? He flat out told her that she would need an abortion. She said it was jarring. I mean, this one against the Christian values that she was taught, like what is coming on here?

Another victim said that she had her own confusing moment when she had all this bloody discharge. She went to the doctor and she was told that she had early stage ovarian cancer. They had to remove her uterus. She remembered being shocked and thinking, Jung had examined her non-stop. He prayed over her private parts on a daily basis and did routine health checks, but she still had cancer. Another victim said the wake-up call for her came when they were all sitting in Jung's bedroom and they were watching the news. So it's Jung and a bunch of women and it was

about a fire. The news was about a fire that had taken the lives of a lot of people. Jung runs up to the TV and he starts smacking and in he's shouting, what a waste of pussies. He yelled at the unease and said, you should have converted these girls before they died. They should have been brought to me. He was upset he couldn't are word them before they died in a fire. That's what he was upset about.

Another victim, victim B, had made it out of the JMS church. She tried to move on with her life. She never reported the abuse. She just wanted to forget all of her trauma. Then she got married and had children. And she keeps looking at our children. And she's like, I don't want to raise my kids in a world where there's a monster like that out there. Just free. She said, when I look at my kids,

I can't stay silent anymore. She was recruited into the church when she was a sophomore in high school. She was a minor, a 16 year old. That's when her nightmare started. She was recruited to join JMS, but victim B's dream in life was to become Miss Korea one day. So she's studying scriptures at JMS

and she tells her, and he like, I wanna be Miss Korea one day, like that's my goal. The only says, well you have to get permission first. I'm gonna arrange a one-on-one meeting with the Messiah the next time you visit. Fickd and B is like, oh my god, thank you so much. I'm so nervous, I'm so excited. She wondered what they would talk about. The only said, you need to ask him for permission about being in Miss Korea.

Victim B said meeting someone like him was a once in a lifetime chance for me. I felt like I was getting closer to God. She remembers being taken to the hotel room that he was staying at. She opens the door to his room and he's sitting there with another woman. The other woman was instructed by Jeong to leave. So now Victim B is completely alone with Jeong. And she finally gained the courage to talk and said, I want to try out from Miss Korea. It's been my life dream. Jung smiled and said,

Hmm, let's see. I just want to make sure that you can handle it before I give you my response. He instructs her to get naked. She thought, maybe the Lord knows something? She thought if Jesus appeared right in front of you and asked you to do something, wouldn't you do it?

So she stripped, Jung grabbed out of nowhere and said, if you try out other men will try and fuck you. She was frozen and fear, she was so shocked, it was vulgar, it was bizarre, I mean, what is going on? He throws her on the bed, climbs on top of her, and starts rubbing. She was so scared to move, she just laid there and he kept instructing her to call him baby and honey

and all these things. He kept aggressively telling her to reach a climax. And when he was done, he told her that she could never tell a soul of what happened. Another reminder, she's 16, just minor. She had no idea what was going on. She always believed that Jung was this pure man that devoted himself to God.

She was scared, she felt so alone, she grabbed her pants, ran out of there, he ruined her life. She didn't realize it then, but she recognizes it now. He literally ruined her life. She said the moment that he was doing what he was doing to her and making her call him honey has been burned into her memory since then. Little bits and pieces of these victim stories were starting to come out. Alligations of sexual

assault were swirling, starting from 1991. This is like a million years ago, just so you know how up to date this isn't even an old case. He was recently arrested in 2022, like a few months ago. So 1991, sexual assault allegations were swirling. It said that some of the youngest victims of Zhang were as young as elementary school children, literal children. It said that he would assault these victims in front of other women. He just felt unstoppable. But for some reason, none of these allegations made it mainstream until 1999. The end of the decade.

Four members of JMS church were arrested for kidnapping. These allegations that even the police can ignore. They opened up an investigation and they tried to put the pieces of the puzzle together. Ms. Huang is the victim. She was 27 years old at the time and she said that she was a former member of the JMS church. She decides this is a cult. Like this is a cult. She decides to leave the group. She realized that JMS was not what they were saying it was and she was pretty vocal to the church She said I'm leaving because I don't want to take a part of this like I don't want to be a part of a cult Please stop contacting me. I'm over it. She wasn't planning on going public with anything She wasn't planning on doing any of that. She just wanted to go home return back to her normal life

The followers refused to let her do that. They're bombarding her with phone calls, accusing her of hating past her junk, betraying him, being possessed by the devil. And in the same breath, they're telling her to come back to JMS so that they could save her from the devil that she was possessed by. She refused. She's like, no thank you. You're unhinged. One night, they drag her from her house into a dark van. They kidnapped her to JMS' house in the mountains. She saw rows and rows of shoes laid out in the front door, and through the windows, she could see that Jung was having an orgy with his female followers.

We don't know if she was assaulted on this night, but she was beaten and injured her life by four members of the church. They kicked her, punched her, stomped on her hands. Every inch of her body was badly beaten for four hours straight. They said that they were beating the devil out of her and the picture of their crazed eyes staring at her while they were kicking her in the face. She said she would never forget it. When they were done, they threw her back in the van and on the highway, she's trapped in the back of the van, okay, and she spots a police car driving right next to her. She looks around none of the

church members are paying her any attention. She stares down the police car hoping that they would feel eyes burning into the side of their face and look over at her. And she's like making weird faces twisting her face into these bizarre painful her. And she's like making weird faces, twisting her face into these bizarre, painful expressions. She just wanted to look so strange that the police would stop the car, but not make enough noise or draw enough attention that the driver or the rest of the church members

would see what she was doing. By some crazy miracle it worked. The police looked at her and were like, that's weird, we need to pull them over. Ms. Huang was brought to safety and immediately filed a police report. This comes to light. This hits mainstream media. Same time, you know, those sexual allegations are starting to come back up. The sexual assault allegations are getting more and more attention. More victims start coming out, talking about the horrible things that Jung did to them and the disgusting things that he would say to them. I mean, how do his devout followers react to stuff like this? How do they react to news like this?

There's a police investigation, there's an arrest. Literally, four of your members kidnapped someone. There must be some truth to all of this. The followers defend Jung with more passion. So this part is weird. But followers said that he predicted this would happen. Back in 1981, he allegedly told his followers that he would be on the news, he would be crucified for something that he didn't do, he would get sued, and all of the undeserving followers would abandon him, but the real ones, they would stay because it's a test of loyalty. So after 10 years of stability, after 10 years of joy, he said they are going to face the tomb

phase, which is the hardship phase, the darkest of times. He even predicted the year that it would happen. So now he is telling us followers, I told you guys, I told you guys that we're going to face some hardship in chaos and this is that time. So his devout followers, they're enraged that he was being falsely prosecuted like Jesus Christ himself. They also felt like their loyalty was being put to the test and this was their way to prove that they were devoted to the Lord. They raised their hands in the air and they prayed out loud.

Heavenly Father, those evil men are trying to crucify our leader. Heavenly Father, please free our leader. Please prove his innocence. They felt like the whole world was against drung and it wasn't fair. And one of the biggest opponents was a group called Exodus. Let's talk about Exodus. Exodus is the second book in the Bible where Jewish people have been enslaved for generations by the Egyptian Pharaoh. They pray and pray and they almost lose hope but suddenly God uses the most unexpected person to save them. The Pharaoh's own adopted son, who turns out to be Jewish by blood.

This is the biblical story. So miracles death happen, more miracles, more death happens, and finally the Pharaoh releases them, and they walk out as one big group that's led by the Pharaoh's adopted son. They walk towards the horizon, towards freedom, they all walk. They're freed. An online forum called Exodus pops up and it was centered around testimonies of essay survivors from JMS Church. The forum was created by a mathematics professor by the name of Kim Do-young. He taught at a university, and I'm sure

he called the site Exodus for a reason, and I'm sure JMS knew the reason, but Professor Kim had heard rumors since 1995 about the Messiah. He even attended JMS Church Shwantz to see what it was all about, and he was so shocked. Everything in the sermon sounded so sexual. There's even posters that Jung would hold up in his sermons that were like female anatomy posters of like the uterus and the womb. It was weird. Jung kept calling himself the Messiah. He would say vulgar things, just bizarre things. He called women bitches and sluts. Jung would also be heard in sermon saying, a lot of people say that they can't see God.

They're looking for God and they can't see Him. Well here's what I say, stop looking for Him. Look for me, I'm right here, I'm God. You don't know who I am? I'm the Messiah. Professor Kim was shocked. He said Jung was cocky, vulgar, overly sexual, he was stunned. He realized that this was far from a religious group.

It was just weird, but he would look around and everyone is like, ah man, ah man. Okay, what's going on? Zhang would say things like, don't read the Bible. I know more than the Bible. Ask me, I'll tell you how it was. At first, Professor Kim did not know what to do with this information that he just gained from this sermon. He goes home and he's like, well, who am I to judge these religious people?

He stops thinking about it. But his girlfriend was working on a paper on contemporary religion. And she told him about how she had come across all of these allegations, the suppressed stories of essay allegations from JMS church members. Professor Kim was so disgusted. He started Exodus to give the victims a place to unite and heal, and ultimately to take down JMS, which they would. But at an insane cost, Professor Kim's dad was almost murdered and exodus members were attacked.

It gets really crazy. So the website goes from being a casual meeting place amongst victims to this strong activist movement that would be crucial in JMS. Professor Kim said that he had never felt so much rage in his life. All he knew was that Jung needed to be taken down. He recalls when he was much younger and much more volatile, that this was the only time in his life where he had thought about killing someone. He wanted to kill Jung. He hoped that members of JMS would see the truth, but they didn't. All they saw was the devil.

They thought Professor Kim was the devil reincarnated, trying to take down Jung. They all got into some heated arguments. Professor Kim would call, okay this is a little weird, he would call JMS HQ headquarters and he'd be like, let me speak to the fucking asshole. And they'd be like, how dare you call Armassaya an asshole? Listen, you might think that he's Jesus reincarnated but he's nothing but a horny dog and heat to me, so put the fucker on the phone. The followers were shocked.

They were like, wow, he truly is a devil. Okay. Why would you break into these apartments? For money, for drugs, whatever was in there. Why aren't you afraid of getting caught at doing this? No. Who's gonna catch us? What a police!

It was the height of the crack era, and instead of locking up drug dealers, some New York City cops had become them. I would suit up in my uniform and we're going to want some drug dealers, and I know how to do it really well. This is the inside story of the biggest police corruption scandal in NYPD history, and the investigation that uncovered it all. Did you consider yourself a rat?

100%! I saved my soul just like everybody else does! Listen to and follow the set, an Odyssey Originals documentary podcast series available now in the Odyssey appals documentary podcast series, available now in the Odyssey app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your shows. I'm not a big guy, man, but I love being that dirty mother f***er. And there was a fire being lit under Jung's ass, and he's starting to feel the heat with Exodus, with these allegations allegations with the kidnapping arrests. And then in 2002, SBS, one of the biggest broadcasting news networks in South Korea, they have a show called The Unanswered Questions, which we've mentioned before in a couple of different cases.

They dedicated an entire episode on JMS. They insinuated that JMS was a cult, they exposed Jung for going around calling himself the Messiah, about how he used his position of power to sexually assault female followers. Allegedly, over 100 victims were contacted for information in the making of the series. When the broadcast aired, over 10,000 followers of JMS gathered to protest. They believed media was run by the devil.

The devil was out for junk, the Messiah. He was being falsely prosecuted. One follower even confessed at the time that he contemplated getting a hot air balloon, putting explosives in his backpack and flying straight into the SBS building to blow himself up and the SBS headquarters up. That's how serious they were.

He said the only thing in his mind at the time was to stop the devil. Right after this broadcast, Zhang was sued by victims and he... He fled the country, okay? He told his followers that he was gonna go on a mission trip to convert and save more souls around the world and spread his blessings, but he was going to go on a mission trip to convert and save more souls around the world and spread his blessings But he was literally just a fugitive, okay? He went to Hong Kong and from there he traveled around from Malaysia, Taiwan, mainland China, New Zealand He said that he was spreading the news, spreading the blessings

But he was just going around indoctrinating and writting more women to the point where it almost became a diplomatic issue for South Korea That this South Korean church leader was going around creating a trail of victims in all these other Asian countries. But even that wasn't enough. Jung would fly female followers out from South Korea to rip them wherever he was. Then he would ship them back to Korea when he was done with them. And he still had a tight grip on his Korean followers. He would send them videos of his sermons that they were told to study and worship.

He kept in close contact with everyone. He would send them gifts and letters and he would demand letters in return. He would even provide phone counseling sessions while he was overseas to his Korean congregates. And while he is on this world tour, basically, his following only grew. And so did the extent of his damage. Inside Doat, this guy has some freaking nerve, okay? Because his followers are taking out loans, remorgaging their homes, selling all their belongings, in an attempt to make sure that he would be okay if anything were to happen to him.

They're still out there raising money. Meanwhile, this guy is living in mansions, throwing parties. He would rent out an entire resort to throw parties with young, beautiful tall woman. He would fly out girls willy-nilly from South Korea just so he could assault them. Two victims shared their story with Netflix. Their sisters. They were both flown out to see Jung and Hong Kong. They were recent recruits, so people were still recruiting more girls into JMS, even when Zhang had fled the country.

They said, SBS is a liar, they're the devil, all of these people, they're jealous, they just want to see him come down, he's too good for this world. The sisters believed it, they had heard stories of him being this devoted miracle worker, they had no doubt that a holy man like him could never do the things that he was accused of doing. They were encouraged to write letters to show their support to Zhang. They believed in his innocence wholeheartedly until it happened to them. The two sisters arrived in Hong Kong.

They were rushed into his room in the middle of the night. He was laying in bed when they walked in. So this is the first time that they're meeting him. They joined after he fled. And the uneas that brought them in told him, give him a massage. The Lord is tired from, you know, saving the world one soul at a time. And they lock the two sisters into his bedroom.

The sisters were honored. They give him a massage, and he instructed them to sleep on either side of him, so he's sleeping in between the sisters. They kind of thought it was weird and it was strange, but they didn't feel like they were in a position to say no. instructed them to sleep on either side of him, so he's sleeping in between the sisters. They kind of thought it was weird and it was strange, but they didn't feel like they were in a position to say no. Sister number one fell asleep rather quickly, but sister number two, she wasn't able to fall asleep. In the middle of the night,

Jung thought both sisters were asleep. He leaned over sister one and starts taking her clothes off and assaulting her. He kept whispering her to be quiet and not wake up her sister, who is awake, but too scared to do anything. And he whispered that this is the Lord's will and her soul will be damned if she doesn't let him do this. After it happened, sister number one snuck out of the room and ran into the room next

to Jung's bedroom, which is where all the unnies were. These are the ones that she trusted, the unnies that had brought her here. And she's trying to shake them away, and she's like, please, you have to help me, like you just ripped me. All the lies, they're not lies, please wake up. She's shaking them, and these unnies are pretending to be comatose. They're basically just staying asleep. They're choosing to ignore what happened to her.

It's clear that they're in on it too. The two sisters talk about what happened, and they realize that they were in danger. If it seemed like they were going to go back home to South Korea and start trouble for JMS, or say that he are worded them, they didn't know what was going to happen to them. So the rest of their Hong Kong trip,

they had to act like they were enjoying their time while probably being assaulted further. It is unimaginable how the sisters must have felt, like going through the most traumatic thing that anyone can go through in a foreign place feeling betrayed by the people that you trusted and to have to act like you're having a blast. To act like you were being blessed. When they were flown back to South Korea, they immediately reached out to Exodus. Professor Kim was disgusted. He said Jung is not a human being. So Professor Kim is amping up Exodus while Jung is abroad,

and Jung is getting more and more reckless. He started an international crime spree, really. The reason that he traveled to so many different countries was, yes, to assault more women, but also, he just kept storing up so much trouble legally with local governments that he had to flee countries non-stop. He did this so many times. He was put on Interpol, international police's red notice list. He was wanted for sex crimes, fraud, and embezzlement. So if anybody caught him entering or leaving a country, they would flag him, ship him back to South Korea and handcuffs. In theory, it was great, but somehow it didn't work.

Jung assaulted nearly 100 Taiwanese women. And it became a huge problem. In addition to how horrible his crimes were, it was a diplomatic nightmare. He had been recruiting Taiwanese followers from universities and once news came out that he had assaulted so many Taiwanese women, Taiwan was absolutely insulted. When it got bad, he flew to Hong Kong, somehow escaping Interpol, it was in Hong Kong that he ran out of pages in his passport.

This is not a metaphor. Like literally he ran out of pages in his passport, which typically it's a normal procedure. You go to the consulate and say, hey, I ran out of pages in my passport. Can I get more pages in my passport? And they'll give it to you. But Jung was paranoid. He's on Interpol's red notice list. So he decided the only way to get pages in his passport was to bribe the Consulate officials. He comes in with a massive giant crystal worth probably tens of thousands of dollars. An expensive bribe. And it was done because nobody at the Consulate knew who the fourth this guy was in Hong Kong. But he just walked in with a massive, shiny spotlight on top of his head in the form of a giant crystal. So they're like, if this guy is trying to bribe us with tens of thousands of dollars, we should probably do a background check on him. Seriously. Yeah, so they look into the system,

instead of giving him more pages, they find out that he's wanted. He's arrested on the spot, and the plan was for him to be extradited back to South Korea immediately. be extradited back to South Korea immediately. But he escapes out the conflict door. And he's free once more. So it's like, okay, Exodus feels like we gotta do something. These international police, they don't care. We gotta do something. So June 2003, Exodus received reports from their informants that Jung was in Hong Kong.

They know this because female followers from South Korea are being flown to Hong Kong to meet with him. Professor Kim tried taking this information to the Hong Kong authorities, thinking, I mean, of course they're gonna wanna get Jung. He's on the red notice list already. But the authorities are like, it's not that interesting. It's fine. Thankfully, Exodus had members who were part of the police force.

So they had some investigative abilities. They put together their own rogue mission, and they flew to Hong Kong, waited until the female followers landed in Hong Kong, and literally stalked them, because they led them right to Zheng. Yeah, they're like a bounty hunters, except they weren't getting paid. So they arrive at Zheng's hideout in the mountains in Hong Kong. It's a very remote area surrounded by fields and forests. The Exodus team knew that they couldn't go in on their own.

They were outnumbered. So they needed to stake out the area and come up with a plan. They climb up the mountains near the back of the house and they could see through the windows. He was already in bed assaulting the three women. They immediately called the Hong Kong immigration officers. They're like, this is proof he's assaulting people right now in Hong Kong.

And they said, okay, we're gonna send out a full team the very next morning to arrest Trump. Exodus is so excited, but they wanna make sure that there's no chance that Trump is gonna get away. When was this? 2003. Oh, this is a long time ago. Cause he gets arrested in 2022. It's a long week. Wow. I feel like this person, I don't even want to call him, I don't know what to call him,

but he's lived like 20 million lives and all of them are horrendous. He's the devil himself. Yes, literally. Literally the devil that just keeps reincarnating coming back, coming back, I don't know. So the next morning, Exodus is like, well, we gotta show up because there's no way we're gonna let the Hong Kong authorities not arrest this guy. So they come the next morning and they have all their filming gear. They climb up to the back of the mountain. They're trying to make sure that Jung doesn't try to escape through the back of the house and up the mountain. But instead, they stumbled upon Jung

before the Hong Kong authorities got there. And he's sitting under this mosquito net. And there were the three victims from South Korea there. They were wearing bikinis. And Jung's pants are literally around his ankles. Professor Kim literally caught him red-handed. They were recording all of this, by the way. And the exodus members who took the videos

said that they were just so stunned. I mean, John was stunned too. But the one with the camera said, you've been working with Exodus for a while, and he was, for years, expecting this malicious, cold leader, a serial, rapist, and one so dangerous, so frightening he was on Interpol's most wanted list. He would have been intimidated by seeing him, he should have felt scared.

But with the camera shoved in Jung's face, he was nothing but like this old, sleazy ajashie that looks so cowardly and pathetic. He had his pants around his ankles, literally, and he seemed scared to come out of the mosquito net. So then he finally got out, pulled his pants up, and he starts trying to hit the camera man. Maybe in hopes to get rid of the camera footage, he's like hitting the camera, smacking it around,

but the camera man just hits him right back. He's like, don't touch me. And he starts stumbling back to his house. Jung runs back to his house screaming, you hit me, you hit me, like a little child. Exitist members were in so much shock. They had flown to Hong Kong to take down this serial rapist and they couldn't believe that on top of all the other horrible things

that Zheng was, he was a miserable coward. But at least the nightmare was over. They had impinned down, they waited for authorities and Hong Kong authorities took him away in handcuffs. He had been arrested. He was done for even all the headlines and Hong Kong authorities took him away in handcuffs. He had been arrested. He was done for even all the headlines in Hong Kong red. Sex crazed cult leader arrested for sex crimes. Sex crazed cult leader found in mountains.

There was a literal video of him with his pants around his ankles. He was going to pay for his crimes. Jung hired a high profile lawyer paid $100,000 for bail and was released. He instantly fled to mainland China illegally without a passport. He kept in touch with JMS supporters sending them videos trying to do damage control because I mean objectively speaking, the video that Exodus took of him was pretty incriminating. He said that he would never assault female followers. Meanwhile, he was caught on camera quite literally with his pants around his ankles.

The JMS community was enraged, but not for the reasons that you think. They were disgusted at Exodus and the fact that Hong Kong had the audacity to arrest their Messiah. This was the modern day Jesus getting arrested by the Romans. And Jung incited violence from And he said in a video, which side note, these videos get weird. He starts developing a bit of an obsession with white tuxedos. I mean, he already liked white tuxedos, but he really becomes obsessed with white, very crazy elaborate tuxedos. So he's wearing a full tux. Like full white tuxedos. And he's wearing a full tuxedos. And he's wearing a full tuxedos. And he's very crazy elaborate tuxedos.

So he's wearing a full tux? Like full white wedding tux vibe. I guess he's trying to look heavenly and majestic. But he said, I was betrayed. Disloyal evil people cannot exist. Jesus said that to me himself. There is no war without casualties and some killings are absolutely necessary.

That is what the Lord has told me. JMS members were out for blood now. JMS starts hunting down members of Exodus, following them, threatening them, terrorizing them. They were able to find them because, well, I'll get into that in a second, but their first target was the Exodus law student that had flown to Hong Kong to arrest Zhong.

He came home to his apartment building one day, and it's just like the small little entrance, like think of your Asian apartment buildings. There's no receptionist desk, there's no front lobby. It's just a door and a motion sensor light and then stairs and you go to your unit. The front motion sensor light wasn't on that night. That okay, that's weird, but maybe it's broken. He starts walking up the steps and there should be another motion sensor light that turns on, but it doesn't turn on either. He's cloaked in darkness and that's when he sees a group of people

descend down the stairs and attack him with a steel pipe. They're holding like a shiny steel pipe. He thankfully had his law textbook and he used it to shield his face. He and the attackers tumbled down the staircase. He runs out onto the street where there are street lights, CCTV cameras, and the followers get scared and run off. He survived. The injuries weren't that bad, but this was just a practice round for JMS. It wasn't the law student they were after. It was Professor Kim.

Professor Kim was pretty careful once he realized how serious JMS was. You know, they're willing to go to the ends of the Earth to defend a record. He took necessary precautions. He stopped visiting friends, family. He was worried that they would be targeted for their association with him. He remembered emotionally telling his parents, I can't see you guys for a while. You have to be careful. He would constantly call them nagging them.

One evening, Professor Kim was on the phone with his dad. His dad is driving home. And his dad starts screaming frantically on the phone. He's screaming, what are you doing? What the hell are you doing? Professor Kim is screaming, asking, what's going on? Dad, what's going on? There's no response.

So he hangs up and he keeps trying to call back, no response. Turns out Professor Kim's father had pulled up to the house. There were men waiting for his car with steel pipes and metal baseball bats. They blocked him from driving forward and reversing. They jumped on top of his car and started smashing the window. Professor Kim's dad opened up his side of the window

just a tiny crack to tell them that he was gonna start driving like they need to leave, otherwise they're gonna get injured, he's gonna drive. They didn't care, they came up to the window, forced their steel pipe in through the tiny little crack, and started bashing Professor Kim's father in the face with the steel pipe. He didn't know how long it lasted.

Five minutes, we don't know. He fell unconscious, the men fled. He was found by his other son. And the image of Professor Kim's father would be burned inside of his memory forever. He said that his dad had a hole in his face the size of a baseball. He was lucky to be alive. He was permanently disfigured from this attack.

They broke almost all of his facial bones. His mouth would forever be twisted to one side and one of his eyes would never close again. When he was first brought to the hospital, they were shocked that he was even alive because of that hole in his face. Professor Kim's brother was so traumatized, the doctor said that all the veins on the left side of Professor Kim's father's face had been completely severed.

And after all of this pain, after all of this trauma, Professor Kim's dad said that he was happy. He said, how did not been me? It would have been you son. I'm happy it happened to me instead. And I thank God every day that I was attacked instead of you. Professor Kimms that he felt so much hatred and guilt,

he questioned himself for why even went after JMS, how this could happen to his dad. He thought to himself, how can someone do this? Even gangs in South Korea know not to mess with someone's parents. Gangsters. It was later revealed that there were prosecutors that were in the JMS cold who were able to pull information on all the exodus numbers where they lived, who their family members were, where their family members lived, their license plate numbers, everything. The police even discovered

that the JMS cold members had found a way into Professor Kim's parents' house and bugged it, planted listening devices. Every inch of that house was bugged. They were listening to Professor Kim's parents for God knows how long. It was utterly terrifying. Professor Kim was shocked. He realized he was dealing with something that was far more dangerous than what he thought. And while it might seem like JMS won the battle, they might lose the war. And sometimes it unravels from the inside. Let's talk about Hong Kong X-Files. This is the story in the beginning of this episode. JMS had a full-blown photography unit. There were photographers that would recruit young female followers

to send pictures to Jung while he was overseas, basically, nudes. Jung would then grade these pictures and send reports back to South Korea. So you would get hundreds of photos of women, in dresses, in various stages of undress, and he would grade them, and send the report back to Korea, and the ones would be like, you gotta be. So you gotta do better now. in dresses, in various stages of undress, and he would grade them and send the report back to Korea

and the onus would be like, you gotta be. So you gotta do better now. Do you love the Lord? You have to do better. So this is how he graded it. If you're fully naked, you would get an A. If you were wearing a bikini, you gotta be plus, and if you're wearing short revealing dresses,

you gotta be. So if you gotta be, you're on you would come to you and be like, you need to get an A. Do not love the Lord. They were told the more pleasing the pictures you can send to the Lord, the more blessed you'll be. Then it would escalate to sending videos. They would be encouraged to be nude with one another, do things to themselves, and say things like, my Lord, you'd call him husband, oba, deer, honey. They were told that they were helping the lord with his loneliness while he fought and

struggled to save the world. And even if he felt uncomfortable, the pressure was too high to even say no. Most of the girls in the pictures had never even met Jung in person. He would buy lingerie for the followers and have them send pictures of themselves wearing it. And if he found a girl that he liked through the pictures of the videos, he would fly them out to wherever he was so that he could assault them. He would compliment them on the phone.

He would say, oh, you look so pretty. He would encourage them to send more explicit videos and photos. He would even tell the girls, you see my sweet girl, when a man gives you lingerie. You basically owe him your body. There was a recorded conversation where the victim is shook by that and she says, what? He said, it means he loves you very, very much. Don't tell anyone. Since I bought you the lingerie, we're already lovers. You can come see me if you want. What would you do once you finally come here and get to meet me?

Isn't he very old-whip? Yeah. Yeah. At this point, it is like 50s, soon to be 60s. And these are girls that are like 19. The girl would say, I would like to meet you and say, hi. What else would you like to do? I would like to listen to your sermons. There's no time for sermons. Hurry up and come. There were hundreds of photos of women in various stages of undress. There were videos upon videos that were incredibly graphic, and more than that, it was just so

heartbreaking to see some of them were included in the Netflix documentary and I've never had to turn off a documentary so many times in my life to just get a breather To see the the mindset that these victims must have been in I mean they would be sitting in a tub saying things like we want you my Lord come here honey. You must be so tired things like, we want you, my Lord, come here, honey, you must be so tired. They would be undressed, kissing, and looking photographs of him. There were videos of sex parties and mansions. There was so much. And remember Kim, the beginning guy at the beginning of the story,

Kim was a member of JMS, and he was in charge of sorting through the mail. He stumbled upon these, and he truly did not believe that Jung was capable of stuff like this of sorting through the mail. He stumbled upon these and he truly did not believe that Jung was capable of stuff like this until he saw the proof. So he took all of this back to Korea, all the evidence uploaded them online for all the other JMS members to see. And he thought, if he could just expose the truth,

just like what happened with him, he would see what the truth was the truth. These are not lies that Exodus are spreading. And everyone would leave JMS. But we both know that that won't happen. At least not to the extent that we hope for. Many members of JMS did leave. They were utterly disgusted.

But other victims started to come out. A victim in China said that she was so badly raped by Jung, it would be categorized legally as sexual torture. He had dragged her into a shower and shoved a scalding hot water faucet into her body parts, and she was screaming and he told her to stay quiet, or he would rip her private area off, and he proceeded to slap her around as he assaulted her. So all of China was outraged by this, by Zhang. But he was still free, and he would still have followers.

Many members were told nonstop that this was the devil testing them, that this wasn't true, and if it was Zhang had a good reason for this, he was saving them. They wanted to send these pictures to him. Mainstream media picked up the news on this one, and the files would later be known as the Hong Kong X-Files. The public was disgusted, outraged, but still, JMS had

a strong following, and Jung was already on the run when this happened, so nothing else has changed. He started moving around a lot more and he still flew out members from South Korea to assault, and there are videos of him holding these massive Christmas parties where girls were wearing these red mini dresses with white fur on them. Again, nothing I would ever be dead caught wearing near a church, otherwise I would be told I'm going to hell for being a salute, which is a different type of trauma, I guess, but they're dancing around him, dancing on him.

And it just felt like the Hong Kong X-Files didn't even impact him that much. Exodus never gave up, though. Things were silent for about a year until one morning in 2007, the Ministry of State Security of China reached out to Exodus. This is like the CIA of China. They called Exodus and said they believed

that they could lure Zheng out. They were hosting a culture exchange event between China and South Korea, in China, and they believed that Jung would show up. They were right. He showed up. They weren't able to apprehend them at that moment, they failed, but they tried again, and this time they successfully arrested Jung and China. And almost instantly after this arrest, Jung's facade of being the Messiah, the leader

of the Savior, the God, it all came crumbling down. He instantly started acting insane to gardener sympathy from Chinese officials. He starts acting similar to a little ajushu who's nervous. He was moaning and covering his mouth and touching his face frantically, like he's losing his mind, which is not what the Messiah would do. Speaking of, Jung was like, you think I'm the Messiah? You think I'm, Jesus, that's insane. I'm just a little pastor of a church.

Oh my God. He was great, you have it all wrong. I'm just the leader of one church. I didn't touch anyone. I'm not the Jesus, I'm not Messiah, I'm just a pastor. He would slap himself and make weird noises throughout the interrogation. In another interrogation, he got down on his knees and crawled towards the prosecutor rubbing his palms together, begging him, please sir forgive me.

This is all a mistake. It was shocking for the public. This powerful cult leader who had spent decades torturing women was on his hands and knees. And the church still stood by him. Many of them sold their homes to pay for his attorney bills during this legal battle. But this time he wasn't fleeing. So he was extradited from China to South Korea to stand for his crimes. And JMS again never left his side.

They're raising money. They're raising so much money trying to silence victims. They're thinking, hey, no victims to testify at a trial? No crime. One victim said, they came to me and offered me $500,000. I rejected. They came back with a million dollars. I rejected.

They came back with an empty check and told me whatever I wanted, I could write down and have. And I rejected. When money didn't work, JMS started threatening victims, threatening to kill their families. Only one victim that was scheduled to testify during the trial, back down,

and the rest refused. They all testified, and even in court, they were being threatened. So you know how in trials, you can have people come and sit and visit and see the proceedings. JMS had known Bodyguards basically the one that would be people up and track people down. They were in the courtroom trying to intimidate the victims while they were testifying.

It did not work. The woman fought to gain their strength back and now There's no stopping a woman like that. There just isn't. When Jung realized he had made a grave mistake, he made one last pathetic attempt to stop the proceedings. While a victim was testifying, Jung starts convulsing and foaming at the mouth, screaming, I can't breathe. Paramedic's Russian.

He's completely fine. He also took the stand at the trial and he said a lot of wild things. He said, I never ripped anyone. There was this one incident, I remember, where naked followers approached me and they forcibly took my clothes off and all I did was hug them in that moment but no penetration. I swear. This next part is really heartbreaking but he admitted during the trial publicly that he was not the Messiah and they claimed that he never said he was.

This was shocking to his followers. Even the ones who had given up everything to help him fight the legal battles, they felt why would he say that? Why would he do that? Jesus would never do that. The real Messiah would never deny who he is. They gave up everything for the man that he believed to be the Messiah and he was slapping them in the face by saying that he wasn't.

One follower was so devastated. Because I think the reality came crushing down on her. She threw herself off a building and took her own life. So remember, these are all victims. They had dedicated most of their lives. They had ruined their families, their interpersonal relationships. They had never gotten married, never dated. They had no social life, no family. They gave up everything, all their money. For this man that they believed is the Messiah, they believed that they had a purpose and they were doing good,

turns out he was a rapist and a coward. I just can't imagine how you even come to terms with that. In 2009, at 63 years old, Jung was sentenced to 10 years in prison. Only 10 years. After thousands of victims, 10 years. After decades of traumatizing generations of people torturing them, all the damage he had caused,

10 years. It wasn't fair. People thought that he should die in prison for what he did. Yeah, but at least they hoped, you know what? Okay, he's gonna go to prison. 10 years. It wasn't fair. People thought that he should die in prison for what he did. Yeah, but at least they hoped. You know what? He's going to go to prison. JMS is going to collapse.

He was thrown in prison in 2009. Now, if you guys watch the Netflix documentary or saw the trailer, there is one victim who was kind of the center of the story. Her name is Maple. Jung was thrown in prison in 2009. Maple would join the church in 2012. It's still going on. And she would be raped by Jung countless times. She met Jung while he was in prison. She joined the church while he was in prison and she was visiting him as a devout follower.

She didn't believe the rumors, you know, they were all set up by the devil to test everyone. She believed in junk's innocence, she believed he was wrongfully convicted. So yeah, JMS did not crumble, and a new chapter for JMS had started, a new chapter of victims had started. JMS followers were still active, especially online after his conviction. They were online spouting this some narrative that the current media environment is toxic towards all religion. They argued that Jung was being prosecuted for being good because mainstream media doesn't

like religion right now. They said even if a religious movement has only positive effects in the lives of young people, the media is going to continue to categorize every religious group as dangerous or manipulative or like a cult. They argued that the government and everything that anyone had on junk were all manufactured lies. New followers from all over the world were still joining JMS or the Providence was the other name for the JMS church. Like Liz.

Liz was an Australian victim who spoke out later in 2014. She said that she joined Providence when Jung was in prison. She remembered in Australia. A Korean woman approached her asking if she wanted to fill out a survey. That's how she joined the church. By the end of the year, she moved into a house filled with other church members, and she just remembered how everyone was talking about how John was falsely convicted, and she believed it.

She was given a double picture frame. One side had a picture of Jesus, and the other side a picture of John, and she was instructed to pray to both of them, Jesus and John, and she had the honor of becoming an evergreen. This is the titles the girls were given in the Providence section, and they were told that this is the greatest honor. You're basically God's bride now. You can never get married,

you can never look at another man, you are for God. Liz was encouraged and told that she needed to send Jung letters while he was in prison. And a lot of them became very quickly intimate. She ended up sending pictures of herself in bikinis. She recalled Jung would write back to her saying things like, women are more beautiful when they're naked. He told her that her pale white skin aroused him.

So Liz was eventually asked to fly to South Korea and visit Jung while he was in prison, and she did. I know. OK, I know what you're thinking. Liz visited a convicted serial rapist and molester in prison and she did. I know, okay, I know what you're thinking. Liz visited a convicted serial rapist and molester in prison. But two things to remember because I see a lot of people victim blaming with this case.

Liz is a victim. She was indoctrinated, taken advantage of, groups like this, they can spot a weakness from a mile away and they're gonna use it to their advantage to convince you that what you're doing is right for you, the family, the world. And the second thing is, why the fuck is prison letting him have young female visitors to begin with? Like, I don't understand that. Why is he even allowed to receive nude and or bikini photos from young women? But he was.

Yeah, he's basically doing the same thing he's been doing. Yeah, and they're like, well now you get free meals. Basically. So Liz, she ends up falling into the vicious cycle of victim to perpetrator pipeline. She starts helping recruit more young women. The JMS church ran a modeling group at the Australia National University campus. So it was easy for her to recruit beautiful young and tall women. Even in prison, Jung had learned nothing from his crimes. Looking back, of course Liz says she regrets everything.

And she genuinely, genuinely believed that she was saving people. She genuinely believed that she was doing the right thing. JMS even told her, Satan uses your parents to try and convince people to get out of the group to recant them from being saved. JMS even told her, Satan uses your parents to try and convince people to get out of the group to recant them from being saved. So they convinced her to stop talking to her parents altogether. And once she did that, she felt like there was no going back. She said, when you're in it, your brain washed into thinking that life will be horrific

if you ever think about leaving. Not only will you go to hell, but your life itself will be horrible. You think, if it's hard now, this is nothing compared to the agony of leaving. Luckily Liz got out before Zhang was released from prison, but Maple was not so lucky. Okay, Maple is a really pivotal part of this story because she's the one that gets him re-arrested. Maple was born in Canada in 1994. Her parents had moved to Canada from Hong Kong and they were trying to make it as immigrants. For a while things were good until they weren't. Her family moved back to Hong Kong and by the time that Maple was in high school, her life

was just very unstable. Her parents were constantly fighting. Maple was getting bullied in high school. She just felt very lost, alone and vulnerable. She was a sophomore in high school, so second year student. She went to the mall with her sister and she was approached by this young college girl. And it was just a nice conversation. They exchanged numbers and this 언니 kept calling her, wanting to meet up with her and

talk to her about life. Maple ignored her out first thinking, okay, this 언니's kind of weird, but one night, she felt particularly lonely and vulnerable and she just reached out to the onion text at her, what even is the meeting to life? Like, what is the meaning of love? The onion starts comforting her and referencing the Bible and tells Maple, God created men with purpose.

And that purpose is love. God loves people. God loves you a million times more than a parent could ever love you. Maple said that she was moved. She didn't realize love like that could even exist and it made her feel hopeful. She starts meeting up with the young new who is so nice and welcoming and Maple grew to really trust and admire her. She was introduced to other members of JMS and they too, they're very nice and warm and welcoming and she's like, oh my gosh, maybe I'm finding my place in life. She said that she found forgiveness and freedom with JMS. The community was always there

for her to hold her up whenever she fell down. She just didn't feel so alone anymore. She was told that Zhang their leader was put in prison, but it was all fake. It was the devil who put him in there. They told her that Zhang was in prison to bear the sins of mankind. He was doing it for us. He was sacrificing himself for mankind. And that is true love. Side note, while in prison, Zhang did request some very, very odd things from his followers. His inmate number was 1178. So his inmate 1178, right? Just random, systematic number.

And he told his followers, if you pray at 1am, 1pm, 7pm, your life will be eight times better, 1178. Also, number significance for no reason strikes again. He said 1178 is also the total length of the Korean peninsula in kilometers. So I don't know what that makes him. Mr. Korea, I don't know.

Okay, I digress. So like Liz, Maple remembers early on, the members were asking her to take pictures of herself in her bikini to send to Jeongwally's in prison. It started off really slow. Her honey asked her to come swimming with her, and while they're goofing around in their bikini swimming, she's like, let's take pictures to send to Jung. But then the pictures got more and more scandalous, and Maple just remembers being confused,

and things were escalating so quickly, she felt like she couldn't say no, and nobody else around her seemed alarmed. Maple tried to reason with herself. These are for the Lord who loves me, and already knows everything about me, so it can't be bad. She remembers telling JMS members that she never lived a clean life. She said that recently she had drank and smoked because she just wanted to get rid of her life problems.

She was a sinner and JMS was like, no, love the Lord with the pure heart now. You will be purified once you meet the Lord. And with that, she was requested to visit Drung in prison. love the Lord with the pure heart now, you will be purified once you meet the Lord. And with that, she was requested to visit John in prison. She just remembered being so happy. This was like the opportunity of a lifetime. She was reminded over and over again by everyone, not everyone gets to see him in prison. You should be grateful.

She remembers crying because she felt so moved by him. She started visiting him frequently while he was in prison and she would just cry and pray with him. She would cry dear God, our dear Lord is suffering so much in prison for all of us, for all of mankind, for all of our sins. I will spread the word to more people, so please, please just let the Lord be released soon. Please.

Her true nightmare would begin when Jung was released. In 2018, Jung was released at 73 years old. He was put on the sex offenders list and was ordered to wear an electronic ankle for seven years, which he compared the electronic ankle to the nail that crucified Jesus Christ. Professor Kim was devastated when he was released. The founder of Exodus, he said, it felt like a monster had escaped from a zoo. Far more dangerous than a tiger or a lion had broken

out of its cage and was released back into the world. After his release, he goes back to his mountain compound, where his followers are eagerly waiting for him. They had welcome banners for him. They cried. They performed dances and songs that they had been prepping for him for the past couple of years. At this point, Maple had been a part of JMS for six years when he's released. She is a devout follower at this point, and she quickly becomes one of Jun's favorites,

like one of his right-hand women. She's constantly being rewarded. She was forced to dance and sing at massive events. She was kind of like a local celebrity inside of JMS. Jeong acted like no time had passed since he had been in prison. He went straight back to preaching and assaulting. Honestly, I think he became a bit more unhinged compared to before he went to prison. Maple did everything in her power to be someone that

Jung and JMS would be proud of. And one day it seemed like her efforts were paying off. She was asked to keep Jung company one night in his residence. Her only told her, you'll be sleeping here tonight to take care of the Lord. I have some things I need to tend to. She obliged, she's showered, got dressed in her PJs, set up a blanket on the ground in Jung's bedroom because that's what she was told. And she laid down on the floor and she thought it was weird. You know, it's kind of intimidating that she was going to be alone with him in the room, but she would do anything for him, like, he's the Lord. So she falls asleep and wakes up to junk touching her. She was paralyzed

with fear and he starts touching her everywhere and he digitally assaults her. And he told her, God is here, God is giving you his love, God loves you, God has chosen you, but you cannot tell your father because he might misunderstand. Maybel recalls what happened on the Netflix documentary because he might misunderstand. Mabel recalls what happened on the Netflix documentary, and you can just see how hard it is for her to even tell these stories, to think back in that moment, and it's just really heartbreaking to watch. She would later ask the only, like, what happened?

I'm so confused. This happened that night that I was alone with him, and she was told, can't you see maple He adores you so much You're just so pretty And maybe I was like I think I might leave Listen to me. I left you with him on purpose. I was trying to give you a chance a chance to be loved a chance to get closer to the Lord trying to give you a chance, a chance to be loved, a chance to get closer to the Lord.

Mabel is like, oh, well, I'm confused and embarrassed because maybe she's right. I should feel lucky that the Lord loves me, right? I mean, most people would die to be loved by the Lord. Okay, so Mabel stuck around. She was invited back to his residence and over the next few years, she would be continuously raised by him.

The first time it happened, Jung announced that the two of them were gonna be pranked together inside of his bedroom, but instead he kept calling her beautiful, and he instructed her, and I quote, get on all fours on the floor like a cat. Mabel was too scared to say no at this point. You know, she had been in JMS for almost a decade.

She's fully indoctrinated in every sense of the word. That night he assaulted her. She was bleeding, it was painful. And all she wanted was for him to stop. And he told her, you've been ruptured now and your soul is so big and pretty now, you should never change. Maybe I left confused and disgusted. But she was more disgusted about herself. Maple left confused and disgusted,

but she was more disgusted about herself. She said she was disgusted for being disgusted because this is the Messiah. Whenever she felt traumatized or upset about what happened, about what he did to her, she would convince herself she's feeling these things because she's unworthy of love from the Lord. In the documentary, I had to turn it off

in so many points. Watching Maple sob while she talked about how she blamed herself, I have never, in my life, watched a documentary and wanted to jump through the screen so bad and hug someone and then go hunt someone down and punch them in the face so badly. She literally said, she begged God every day to give her the ability to love this old disgusting man. We think about it. He's in his 70s. He's creepy. He's scary.

She was praying to be able to love him the way that she felt like she needed to. She started punishing herself when she couldn't. She started self-harming. She was in pain from the assaults, but then she would get mad at herself when she was conflicted, and she cries out in the interview, he's disgusting. I hate everything about him from his personality to his looks. I begged God so many times and days to give me the opportunity

to love that old man. I used to punish myself, even though I was in so much pain. I kept thinking, how can I be so ungrateful? How can I be so disgusted when the Lord loves you this much? Like the way that our brains find reasons to make sense of traumatic events and find ways to blame ourselves for these events?

There was another victim who journaled after her assault and she wrote in her journal, I didn't understand why he did that, but I think I get it now. He was cleaning me, forgiving me, making me his. Jesus did strange things when he made miracles. The victim's name is Amy and she said, you know, you would think that I would realize that I was being assaulted,

maybe even right after, but no, I didn't. I was so bright-washed. Then one day near the end of 2021, Maple had been in JMS for nearly 10 years. A foreign JMS member texted her, telling her about how she had been by Jung and how so many of the foreign brides had been abused. And she urged Maple, she's like,

Maple, I know, I know how close you are to Jung. You need to get out of there. You need to leave Maple was 26 now and every day since the day that Jung had started the abuse she had thought about ending her own life every single day She knew that she had to get out, but she had to be careful She told Jung I haven't seen my parents in so long I'm just gonna fly to Hong Kong for like a week and I'll be right back I'm just gonna fly to Hong Kong for like a week and I'll be right back

Zheng requested one more night with her before she left Coincidentally because she had to travel she had gotten the COVID vaccine that day So she had an intense fever. Zheng knew this. She's ill. She's burning up. She has a fever Zheng invites her into his room And Maple knew it was gonna happen and in a very scary Life threatening moment, she recorded audio of the assault. It's played in the Netflix documentary and I do not advise you to listen to it, especially if you have any experience with being a sad, if like it is one of the most triggering audios that I have heard in so long, the translated transcript

reads something like this. Inside note, during the audio, you can hear maple whimpering and fear, and you can hear slapping noises. Basically, you can hear the assault. Jung tells her, hug me tighter, hug me tighter, say you love the Lord. This is literally while he's assaulting her. She says, I love the Lord. Touch me here again.

It's bigger. It's so amazing when you do that. When a man hugs a woman, he gets so damn hard. There are more slapping sounds. And he continues, you have such white hips, such white hips. Now, if you watch the dubbed version on Netflix, or if you just read the translations, it translates to, do you like that? But it's actually so much worse in Korean.

He says, you like it so much you're losing your mind, huh? She gave no indication throughout the audio that she liked it at all. In fact, she gave every indication that she was in pain. But he continued to ask if she had reached the destination. And if so, how many times? Three, four, twenty, he continues to say, I have climaxed fifty times. And he continues to see, God has chosen you like this. Make sure nobody touches you like this, because this belongs to the Lord. Maple was crying in the Netflix interview explaining how she had to keep calling out the Lord's name while he was doing this to her. She said she asked God why she had

to go through something like this. Professor Kim, the founder of Exodus, said, he said something that really stuck with everyone. He said the first time I visited JMS was in 1995. Maple was not even one year old. She was a baby and a diaper. And now, now that baby is sitting here as another victim of sexual assault. And now, now that baby is sitting here as another victim of sexual assault, more than 30 years of victims and three decades of pure terror. And Mabel was determined to put an end to it. She escaped to Hong Kong, and just five months later, she came back to his home to hold

a press conference. On March 16th. His fucking birthday. She didn't want anyone to go through what she went through. And if you guys know sexual assault cases in South Korea and really anywhere, you know, no victims want to come forward because it stays with you for life. The internet is with you for life. No one wants to put their face to this.

No one wants to be victim-plained, especially in this situation. There is so much victim-plaming against Maple. But she said she's willing to put her name, her face, her story. This audio clip of one of the most traumatic things a woman can go through, she's willing to make it all public to stop this monster. She said somehow JMS knew that she was flying out to Seoul. They contacted her and threatened her. They said things like, you're doing this because you don't really know Koreans. Basically saying you don't know where we're capable of. JMS members in Hong Kong tried to stop her

at the Hong Kong airport, trying to get her to not get on a plane to Korea. Once she got to Seoul, she was being followed. She was being watched by JMS members. She was suffering PTSD, anxiety attacks to the point where her body couldn't take it anymore. On the way to the press conference, her body literally shut down. She kept, there's footage of this. She's throwing up non-stop in the car on the way to the press conference. She had to stop by the hospital. Nothing

was helping. She's still throwing up. And the person accompanying her that was, I believe, a producer from Netflix asked, do you just want to reschedule? It's okay if you do. And what she said, she said, not even God will be able to stop me from doing this. I swear, I feel like my heart broke in a million pieces during this documentary. During the press conference, she sat there and she powerfully declared in no shape reform is Zhang Amisaya. He is not fulfilling the Lord's will. And due in part to Maple's bravery, Zhang has been re-arrested.

There were mixed responses to her press conference. Of course, JMS members believed Maple was working with the devil. She had betrayed everyone and they worked hard to spread lies about Maple and her family. They were vilifying her, attacking her character, her credibility. They insinuated that she was mentally ill and that she was lashing out. One JMS member said with his whole chest, if this really did indeed happen, she would have left the church and looked for a solution. That's the natural logical thing to do,

but she didn't do that, so we don't think this happened. There were other victims that watched the press conference, older victims, and they had been too scared to come forward and they said, I felt a lot of guilt. I felt like I should have been the one to say something. Maybe if I had done more, if I had said more, if I fought harder, then maybe maple wouldn't have been a victim. Maple's parents have been supporting her every step of the way. They know that maple did nothing wrong and they told her they're so immensely proud of her courage, her morals, her belief, and she's the world to them.

In October 2022, Jung was re-arrested. Professor Kim sighed a brief breath of relief, but it was bittersweet because his father had just died a few months prior to Jung's re-arrest. So he didn't get to see Jung get re-arrested. So after four years of being released, Jung was re-arrested on the same charges, but things are a bit different now. With the Netflix series, there's a lot of international attention on this case, and I know social pressure isn't necessarily a great thing when it comes to court decisions,

but I do hope that we'll see something more than 10 years this time. And even if Jung is never gonna be a free man ever again, I just can't imagine how the victims feel. More victims have been coming out with attraction of the Netflix series, and I'm very sad to tell you that JMS is still going strong. His following is still loyal. They are threatening victims, doing everything in their power to stop word from getting out. They even tried to stop the release of the Netflix documentary.

The courts ruled against them, and in favor of Netflix. So now they have spread this narrative that the documentary is proof that the media is conspiring against Zhang in conjunction with the government. They argue that the Netflix documentary is being released too close to his trial date, and it was strategically trying to take him down. Cho Sung-yeon, the NBC producer that produced the Netflix documentary, said, NBC had been wanting to do a documentary on JMS, but they were too scared.

So he brought this to Netflix and asked them so that it would be released under Netflix as an extra layer of protection, which I don't know if it really worked. Side note, the producer, this is not just a job for him. It was revealed that he had family and friends that were victims of JMS and cults. So this meant a lot for him. The series is actually not just about JMS.

There are other episodes of other cults in South Korea. If you guys are interested, I can also look into those. But the producer said that since the start of filming for this, not even the release, he had been followed, threatened, watched. He said in his 15-year career, he had never bought a self-defense weapon until this case. And to make matters worse, the producer said, what's released in this Netflix documentary? Is not even 10% of the crimes he learned about from JMS. This is the tip of the iceberg.

The production teams, the lawyers, they wouldn't allow him to release the other 90% because it was that bad. It's just terrifying. I think it's really gross that Zhong has used religion to commit these heinous crimes. And I want to say that even though there are still members of JMS that support him, I think to a degree in their own ways, these are all victims too. Zhang is currently waiting trial, and he is 77 years old. I hope this time we will see some sort of justice, and I hope the victims find some peace and happiness after all of this is over

and I just hope that they get to sleep at night knowing that he's gone. But that is the JMS cult. The case that I was way too scared to cover while I was in Korea. What are your thoughts? Please leave in the comments and please stay safe and I'll see you guys on Wednesday for the main episode. Bye! Wednesday for the main episode. Bye!