Conviction Christian institutions & contexts Evangelical, Pentecostal, and independent Kaneohe, HI, USA · 2009

Manuel Taboada: eight sexual-assault convictions after scripture was used to justify abuse

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Record class

Core record

Evidence status

Convicted

Authority role

minister and leader of Back to the Cross Ministry, spiritual mentor controlling a communal religious household

Organization

Back to the Cross Ministry

Archive classification

This is the archive's application of its published inclusion test. The cited record appears below.

Contemporaneous court reporting states that Taboada led the Back to the Cross Ministry, lived with congregant families in a communal religious household and groomed the child to succeed him in ministry leadership. Prosecutors said he quoted scripture to justify the assaults and had warned that disclosure would cause the ministry to collapse. His spiritual leadership was therefore part of the access, grooming and silencing mechanism.

Pastoral or clerical authority
Institutional obedience or isolation
Other spiritual authority or belief

Evidence structure

Proceedings

2009-06-29 · guilty plea and sentence, Case No. 1PC081001157

Circuit Court of the First Circuit, State of Hawaii. Taboada pleaded guilty to eight counts of second-degree sexual assault covering conduct from April 2001 through April 2007. The court imposed the agreed ten-year prison sentence and lifetime sex-offender registration; the plea agreement requested a six-year minimum before parole eligibility, subject to the Hawaii Paroling Authority.

Documented coercion mechanisms

scripture used to justify sexual abuse
grooming for future ministry leadership
communal religious living arrangement
threat that disclosure would destroy the ministry
spiritual authority over a child congregant

Cited record

Sources

contemporaneous local court reporting criminal disposition and nexus Star-Bulletin, 'Oahu pastor jailed for assaulting girl' (June 30, 2009).: Contemporaneous sentencing coverage records the eight guilty pleas, ten-year sentence, offense dates, communal ministry setting, grooming for leadership and prosecutor's statement that Taboada quoted scripture to justify the abuse.
contemporaneous local court reporting sentencing corroboration Hawaii News Now, 'Former minister sentenced for sexually assaulting child' (June 29, 2009).: Contemporaneous courtroom reporting corroborates the guilty pleas, ten-year term, lifetime registration, position of trust, scripture pretext and ministry-leadership grooming.
contemporaneous local court reporting charging context Jim Dooley, 'Prosecutor: Alleged molester leads cult,' Honolulu Advertiser (Aug. 28, 2008).: Pretrial court reporting documents the religious communal structure, Taboada's leadership and the State's evidence concerning grooming, disclosure threats and admissions; allegations outside the later Hawaii plea are not counted.

Source provenance

Source access and integrity log

This log records source retrieval and file integrity. It does not mean that an automated process independently confirmed every statement in the source.

Source and tier basis: https://archives.starbulletin.com/content/20090630_Oahu_pastor_jailed_for_assaulting_girl Corpus classification: contemporaneous-local-court-reporting; evidentiary role: criminal-disposition-and-nexus. SHA-256 f874b60c285e9872122097d913d30e0b3d97d2689c68f6108117078269ed3b6c
Retrieval: 2026-07-20 · Preserved; Bound by Fear automated source-preservation ledger
Source and tier basis: https://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/story/10615888/former-minister-sentenced-for-sexually-assaulting-child/ Corpus classification: contemporaneous-local-court-reporting; evidentiary role: sentencing-corroboration. SHA-256 86cb63dd434aabde2e7f419ab84087e9e9294d8ba39ffea15f56c0279f2df9db
Retrieval: 2026-07-20 · Preserved; Bound by Fear automated source-preservation ledger
Source and tier basis: https://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2008/Aug/28/ln/hawaii808280325.html Corpus classification: contemporaneous-local-court-reporting; evidentiary role: charging-context. SHA-256 23e8b58400c26154c3796ac99ae3d57372de94829442cf7a39c17fb45015e001
Retrieval: 2026-07-20 · Preserved; Bound by Fear automated source-preservation ledger

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