‘Cult’ church member molested small boy while his children napped, new victim says

Tucson.com/June 3, 2025

By Emily Hamer

Editor’s note: This story contains descriptions of sexual violence against children.

Jonathan Santos sobbed in one of the stalls of a McDonald’s bathroom in Tucson in February.

A member of a Tucson church admitted he molested a boy. The pastor said he knew and never went to the police, flouting state laws that mandate reporting of such incidents.

He knew he needed to clock in for work, but he couldn’t stop the tears. He could barely even breathe.

Santos, 23, had just left the Tucson Police Department in the middle of an interview about sexual abuse he said he experienced as a child at the hands of Jose Mora, a former congregant of the Golden Dawn Tabernacle. Mora was arrested and charged in April for alleged child sex crimes. The charges stem in large part from an Arizona Daily Star/Lee Enterprises Public Service Journalism Team investigation in which Mora publicly admitted to sexually abusing a different child.

Santos kept replaying the detective's questions about an incident with Mora when Santos was about 8 years old in 2009: What time of year was it? Who was there? Did anyone else witness it? How did you react? What led up to the interaction?

The last question sent Santos’ mind spiraling into self-blame.

“It really hit me because to me, in my own head, I had thought, ‘Oh, what did you do to seduce a grown man?’” Santos remembers thinking, even though that’s not what the detective asked. “I was like, ‘Even the detective doesn't believe me.’ It was just self-doubt.”

Jonathan Santos, 23, said he was was sexually abused as a child by a member of his former church, the Golden Dawn Tabernacle. He is sharing his story publicly for the first time. He poses for a photo outside of his home in Tucson, Ariz. on May 12, 2025.

Santos said he recognizes now that the detective had to ask detailed questions to investigate and find the truth. But at the time, the query caused him to relive his trauma, leaving him overwhelmed.

As Santos cried in the bathroom before starting his shift as a manager at McDonald's, he said he was shocked to be met with support rather than blame. His coworker came into the bathroom, asked if he was OK and pulled him into a hug.

Responses like this from coworkers and friends are what have helped Santos heal. Santos said one friend told him he could tell her about his abuse over and over again until he could recount it without crying. He said she was patient and understanding.

“I wasn't expecting the outcome that I got," Santos said. "I wasn’t expecting to be accepted. I wasn't expecting to be comforted."

Santos kept his experience private for more than a decade and is now speaking publicly about it for the first time.

“It took a lot out of me … having to mostly deal with it alone,” he said. “I just kept burying it and burying it, and it wasn't healthy for me.”

“I never imagined being able to say it without stuttering and say it without crying and breaking down.”

And now he can.

‘He didn’t stop’

Santos said Mora sexually abused him on two occasions when he was between 7 and 9 years old. Mora was in his early 40s.

Jose Mora eats dinner with members of his church, the Golden Dawn Tabernacle, at one of their homes in 2002. Mora has been accused of molesting two boys who were also members of the church. Faces of those other than Mora have been blocked at the request of the photo owner.

Santos was close in age to two of Mora’s sons, and he remembers the third son being a baby at the time. Santos said it was normal for him to go over to Mora’s house to play with the boys. Mora was a family friend and a member of their church, the Golden Dawn Tabernacle.

Former members have accused Golden Dawn of being a “cult” because of what they describe as the church’s practices of excommunicating former members, isolating congregants from the outside world, manipulating members’ financial and health decisions and allegedly ignoring child sexual abuse allegations for decades, an Arizona Daily Star/Lee Enterprises investigation found.

Santos said he remembers one incident where he was at Mora’s house, playing with Mora’s sons when “out of nowhere" Mora was groping his buttocks and groin, Santos said.

During a second incident, Mora picked Santos up from school. Santos said he was at Mora’s house with the two older sons when the two boys went to take a nap.

Santos never napped, he said. He would typically do chores after school, eat dinner and then go to bed. But Santos said Mora brought him into his bedroom anyway. Santos was too small to get onto the bed, so Mora lifted him up into it, Santos said.

Mora then grabbed Santos’ hand and used it to rub Mora’s groin over his pants, Santos said. Mora forced his other hand under Santos’ clothes and groped his buttocks, Santos said. Then, Santos said, Mora used his fingers to penetrate the boy.

"I didn’t know what was happening at all," Santos said.  

Santos said Mora didn’t stop — even when Santos defecated. Mora just got Santos a different pair of underwear, Santos said.

“I do remember him keeping going after he cleaned me up,” Santos said. “He didn’t stop until he finished.”

Mora declined a request from an Arizona Daily Star reporter to interview him while he is in custody at the Pima County Jail. Mora also did not respond to messages sent via an inmate messaging app that outlined the new allegations against him.

Santos said he is not sure how old he was when this abuse happened. But during the second incident, he remembers his mother was out of town to visit his sick grandmother, who died shortly after. Santos said his mother does not want to speak to the media but that she did talk with police.

According to the U.S. Social Security Death Index, a woman whose name, family members and location match Santos’ grandmother died in California on Jan. 18, 2009. That means Santos would have been 7 when Mora allegedly sexually abused him.

Indicted

Mora was charged April 15 with three counts of sexual conduct with a minor and five counts of child molestation, according to the indictment against him.

The indictment alleges that Mora used his finger to sexually penetrate two children in separate incidents that happened a few years apart. It also alleges that Mora groped the children’s genitals and engaged in forced oral contact with one of the children.

Two of the counts stem from alleged sex crimes against a victim identified as “J.S.” in the indictment. Santos said “J.S.” is him.

The other victim in the indictment is Philip, who asked to be identified by his first name only in stories. Philip shared his story publicly for the first time in the Arizona Daily Star in November.

Philip said Mora groped him during three incidents over the summer of 2012 when he was 11. Philip said Mora also forced him to have oral sex and penetrated him with his fingers, which Mora denies. All of the incidents happened at Mora’s home, Philip said. Santos said it is a pattern of behavior.

Mora admitted in an interview with Lee Enterprises and the Star that he touched Philip on the genitals and buttocks because Philip “had a spirit and he provoked me.” Mora said Philip “started it” and “I fell into the trap.” Mora acknowledged that he was the adult in the situation, so he was also responsible.

Santos said he listened to this interview when the Star published the audio recording of it in November. Hearing Mora’s words, Santos said it was hard not to think of himself as “a demon” or “the devil.”

“The way (Mora) said it, like, how he was trying to blame the victim,” Santos said. “It really puts victims into this self-doubt and, like, what if it really was my fault?”

Getting sexually abused by an adult is never the child’s fault. Mora’s claims that children initiated sexual contact with him are no defense at all in a court of law. It is not legally possible for a child under 15 to consent to physical sexual contact by an adult; nor is it a defense to allege the child initiated the contact.

Arizona statute defines molestation of a child as “intentionally or knowingly engaging in or causing a person to engage in sexual contact … with a child under fifteen years of age.” State statute defines sexual conduct with a minor as "intentionally or knowingly engaging in sexual intercourse or oral sexual contact with" someone under 18.

Mora faces life in prison for the charges. His next court date is June 30.

Different underwear

Santos said he doesn’t remember what happened after the second incident, but he knows he came home wearing a pair of underwear that obviously did not belong to him.

Santos always wore plain white or black underwear because his parents did not allow him to wear clothes with colorful designs due to their conservative religious beliefs. Mora had made Santos wear one of his son’s pairs of underwear, which had a cartoon print on them, Santos said.

Santos’ older brother, Luis Santos, remembers some of the aftermath. Lee Enterprises originally interviewed Luis in October 2023 — which is before Jonathan had shared what happened to him with anyone.

Luis said he overheard his mother questioning his little brother about why he was wearing different underwear after spending time with Mora.

“I do remember a question where she asked him, ‘What were you guys doing?’” Luis said in the 2023 interview. “And my brother said, ‘Just laying in bed.’”

Santos' father, Jose Santos, said he didn’t know of any specific allegations of abuse when his children were young.

“I didn’t know about these things until recently when they started coming out,” he said in Spanish.

Once, when his children were younger, he became uncomfortable with Mora because of time another one of his sons had spent with Mora, and the fact that Mora had cut his son’s nails, among other things. After that, Santos said, he contacted a church leader to discuss it.

“He told me to be careful with my kids” (around Mora), Santos recalled. “I immediately cut off the relationship with this man.”

“I didn’t know anything about this man trying to abuse my son,” he said. “If I had known that this man tried to do something to my sons, I would have done something.”

Mora's behavior was known in the Golden Dawn church community, including by the pastor, former members said. Philip's father said he sought advice from Golden Dawn pastor Isaac Noriega about Philip's abuse.

Noriega said he remembers the Santos family, but he was never told about any kind of incident where Mora gave one of the Santos boys a different pair of underwear. Noriega said he would remember something like that, and if any church leaders were informed, they would have told him right away.

"I don't know nothing about that. Zero," Noriega said. "I would remember. I was never told anything like that."

Noriega is being investigated by Tucson police for failing to report child sexual abuse allegations, as required by law, but he has not been charged.

Mora claimed he was confronted about the underwear in a September 2024 interview with reporters. Mora said Santos’ father asked him about the underwear, and Mora told him that the boy had picked them out at the store as a birthday present.

“His father talked to me, ‘Why did I buy him that?’” Mora said. “And I told him, ‘He wanted them.’”

Jonathan Santos said Mora’s response “was just lies.” It made him angry.

“First of all, Walmart doesn’t sell single-pair underwear for kids,” Santos said. “Second of all, no little kid, no one’s gonna … want one underwear out of the whole store.

“What got me really heated at the response was how he really belittled a situation that was very traumatizing, very real, and he just belittled it to, ‘Well, it was a birthday,” Santos said. “It wasn’t my birthday.”

“It’s not OK, and it really took a mental toll.”

‘Never enough’

Throughout his life, Santos has struggled with depression. Santos felt like he was searching for something in his life but couldn't find it. No matter what goals he accomplished, "it was never enough."

“I felt like I was never enough,” Santos added.

Three times, Santos' depression got so severe that he received about a week of inpatient mental health care. Santos said he has seen therapists but never felt comfortable telling them what Mora did to him.

As a child, Santos said he thought his abuse wasn’t something he should talk about. He’s not sure where that feeling came from, but a conversation with his father in late 2024 gave him a clue.

Santos reached out to his father to discuss what happened with Mora, and his father told him “not to talk about it, and that he didn't want to talk about it,” Santos said.

“The response was hurtful,” Santos said. “I knew there was just not the parental figure that I could trust in to talk about something like that.”

Santos said his mother, however, and others have “been there for me.”

The first person Santos opened up to was his brother, Luis, in late 2023. But even then, Santos only confirmed that Mora did something to him and said he wasn’t ready to talk about it in detail.

It wasn’t until Philip shared his story in the Star in November 2024 that Santos felt comfortable enough to confide in his friends. He said Philip was “very brave.”

“I have a lot of respect for the other person who came forward,” Santos said. “I think it was the newspaper first, when that came out, it was just very inspiring to me.”

But talking with police was so emotionally taxing that Santos said he reverted back to “just burying it down.”

He left Arizona and moved to El Paso, Texas, to try to forget and start something new. He never planned to come back to finish the police interview.

But then Mora was arrested in April, and Santos realized he didn’t want Philip to be alone in this — like Santos had been for so many years. Santos said he told himself to “set your fear aside.”

"There’s not going to be anything done about it if it’s just one person on the stand," Santos said.

Santos said his thoughts kept going back to the audio recording where Mora blamed Philip.

“(Mora) needs to be held accountable,” Santos said. “In the audio, there’s no remorse. It’s just like, ‘Oh, (Philip) had a devil. He had a demon. They tempted me. They seduced me.’

“No. You need to be held accountable,” Santos said, directing his words to Mora. “There needs to be justice on what you did, how you preyed (on) younger kids. You’re a predator. You’re a pedophile.

“I understand the fear of other people that are not coming forward. I’ve been there,” Santos said. “I did everything that you could do to avoid it — even moved. And it was still not enough for me.”

Santos came back to Arizona in early April. He said he finished his interview with Tucson police April 17. Since then, he said he’s starting to feel like he might be enough.

“It just felt like a load came off my back,” Santos said. “I feel more relieved. I don’t feel that depression. I just feel like (it) was something that needed to be done."

"The feeling of whatever wasn't measuring up enough just fell off," he said. "I began going easy on myself, and that's all that mattered for me."

Tucson police ask that anyone with information about Mora, pastor Noriega or the Golden Dawn Tabernacle call the child sexual assault unit at 520-837-7529.

Arizona Daily Star reporter Tim Steller contributed to this report.

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