TUCSON (AZ)
Arizona Daily Star [Tucson AZ]
April 7, 2025
By Emily Hamer and Tim Steller
From the Twisted Message: A prophet’s unchecked global sect series
Editor’s note: This story contains descriptions of sexual violence against children.
Tucson police are investigating allegations that a longtime member of the Golden Dawn Tabernacle molested a boy in 2012 and the church’s pastor covered it up.
He admitted to molesting a boy. And his Tucson church protected him for years.
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.
The police investigation comes after the Lee Enterprises Public Service Journalism team and the Arizona Daily Star reported that Golden Dawn pastor Isaac Noriega admitted he knew and did not go to police about the alleged sexual abuse of an 11-year-old at the hands of a congregant named Jose Mora, a man who was still in good standing in the church when the newspaper report was published in November.
Mora admitted in an interview with the newspaper team that he touched the genital area and buttocks of a boy from his church. Mora was about 45 when the incidents happened, and said he knew that the boy, Philip, was either 11 or 12 at the time. Philip said Mora also penetrated him with his fingers and forced him to have oral sex, which Mora denies.
Since the November report, another former Golden Dawn member has come forward to accuse pastor Noriega of failing to make a report to police after she told him she was raped at age 7 by an older boy from the church. Noriega did not immediately respond to a request for comment on this allegation.
Under Arizona law, priests and clergy members are mandatory reporters who must make a report to law enforcement or the Department of Child Safety when they have a “reasonable belief” that a child is the victim of abuse. Failure to report child molestation is a felony.
The newspaper investigation found that Noriega has repeatedly flouted that law for decades as other potential victims of child sexual abuse were silenced and ostracized.
Tucson police spokesperson Frank Magos said the police investigation into Mora and Noriega “is still ongoing.” He said the newspaper report is part of what the police department is looking at. Magos declined to answer a question about why it is taking so long to arrest and charge Mora after he publicly admitted to molesting a child several months ago.
“We’re looking into the possibility of additional victims,” Magos said. “With that, we’re asking any current or former church members to come forward and talk to us.”
Magos asked that anyone with information call the child sexual assault unit at 520-837-7529.
Anjounette Thorstad, 43, who attended the church as a child, said she is one of the people who are coming forward. She has an interview scheduled with a Tucson police detective in mid-April.
[PHOTO: Anjounette Thorstad left the Golden Dawn Tabernacle when she was 17. She said she was abused as a child by a teenager who went to the church. When pastor Isaac Noriega found out about her allegations years later, the pastor made “the conscious decision to ignore it,” she said. – Mamta Popat, Arizona Daily Star]
Thorstad said she told pastor Noriega about sexual abuse she experienced as a young girl, and the pastor did nothing.
“He didn’t pursue it, didn’t seem to even care about it,” Thorstad said of Noriega. “And of course, nothing ever happened to the individual.”
Another victim ignored
In the late 1980s, Thorstad said she and her two older brothers would often go over to the house of another family from their church, the Golden Dawn Tabernacle, which also goes by its formal name Tabernaculo Emanuel.
The family from church wanted to help support Thorstad’s mother, who had just given birth to triplets. Thorstad, her older brothers and the family’s three boys would often play together.
Thorstad said she was taking a nap in the living room one day in 1988 while her brothers and the two younger boys played basketball outside. She said she didn’t realize that the oldest boy, about 14 at the time, had come into the living room by her and locked everyone else out.
“He basically woke me up by raping me,” Thorstad said.
Thorstad was 7.
Thorstad said her mind blocked out what happened next.
All she remembers is going home and hiding her bloodied underwear in a drawer. Her mother found them and asked who touched her, Thorstad said. But she refused to answer for years even after repeated questioning from multiple family members.
A few weeks after the incident, Thorstad said she told her 5-year-old cousin, who told her mother, who brought it to Thorstad’s mother. Thorstad still would not say the boy’s name because she was afraid she would get in trouble.
Thorstad said the teenage boy continued to sexually abuse her for two years, including incidents where he penetrated her with his fingers, put a small object inside of her vagina and showed her pornographic magazines.
Thorstad asked that the name of her alleged perpetrator not be shared publicly because her goal isn’t to seek charges against him. She said he has already spent time in jail for other crimes.
Thorstad said she wanted to come forward because her story is yet another example of Noriega failing to report the sexual abuse of minors to law enforcement. She said he and the church need to be held accountable.
Culture of cover-ups: Tucson church has ignored child sexual abuse allegations for decades
Alleged sexual abuse of minors has been covered up in a Tucson church for decades, an investigation finds. The pastor dismissed allegations, blamed victims and screamed at police.
When Thorstad was 16, she said, she felt ignored when she discussed her allegations with Noriega and her mother during a counseling session.
Thorstad’s mother was angry that Thorstad and her boyfriend, also a teenager, were engaging in consensual sexual activity before marriage.
“I asked her, ‘Why are you trying to do something about my boyfriend when you never did anything about my rapist when I was 7?’” Thorstad said. She said she used the name of her alleged perpetrator aloud in front of her mother — and Noriega — for the first time.
“The pastor … it seemed like he already knew about it because he didn’t ask, ‘Wait, what do you mean?’ He just asked my mom, ‘Yeah, why didn’t (you) do anything?’”
Thorstad remembers her mother answering Noriega’s questions, and then Noriega turned to Thorstad.
“He said, ‘Well, if it makes you feel any better Anjounette,’ — which, I don’t know how this is gonna make me feel better — but he said, ‘if it makes you feel any better, you’re not the first person to come with us regarding this individual and being inappropriate with girls,’” Thorstad remembers Noriega telling her. “‘But since he’s no longer a member of our church, we’re not going to concern ourselves with him.’”
Thorstad said her abuser had left Golden Dawn Tabernacle a few years prior when he turned 18.
Thorstad said she doesn’t blame her mother because she didn’t have enough information to act without the alleged perpetrator’s name. And her mother tried many times to talk with her about what happened.
But Thorstad said something still could have been done when she brought her allegations to Noriega — or when other girls had reported similar allegations to the pastor.
“The fact that he was just like, ‘Oh yeah, you’re not the first one,’” Thorstad said. “Then why aren’t you doing anything about it? You absolutely can report it … but you’re not. You’re choosing not to, in my eyes. If you know about it, and you know it’s happened to multiple people, you’re making the conscious decision to ignore it.”
Pattern of inaction
Noriega has demonstrated a similar pattern of dismissing sexual abuse allegations, even in interviews with reporters.
Noriega described the alleged sexual assault of a 17-year-old girl by a 27-year-old man from his church as the two of them “having sex.” When a reporter explained that a 17-year-old cannot consent to sex with an adult, so sexual activity between those two congregants would actually be rape, Noriega said, “I don’t understand that because I never knew that before.”
In the same Sept. 11 phone interview, Noriega said he knew that Mora and the 11-year-old boy “touched each other.” But he said the boy started it and the “father was OK with it,” so the issue was over. The father said in an interview that he was in no way OK with his son being abused.
Noriega said he did not report the allegations to police.
Noriega claimed in a later email that he had only known about the allegations for about a year, not since 2012, which is when the father claims he told the pastor.
The father said he sought advice from Noriega about Mora allegedly sexually abusing his son, and Noriega told him, “We don’t go to the law.” Noriega denies this conversation took place. The father said he listened to Noriega’s advice and kept the allegations secret for years because of the deep respect he has for the office of the pastor.
Noriega is considered the highest authority figure in Golden Dawn congregants’ lives — even above law enforcement, former congregants said.
When people tried to report other child sexual assault allegations to the pastor, Noriega screamed at police, yelled at a congregant who tried to show him evidence, compared sexual allegations to “two children fighting over a toy” and said another allegation “wasn’t a big deal,” according to interviews with former church members and a police report.
‘Just wanted out’
Thorstad said she left Golden Dawn Tabernacle when she was 17 because she “just wanted out as soon as possible.”
One reason was that Noriega wouldn’t let her marry her boyfriend in part due to their differing races. Thorstad is Hispanic, and her boyfriend at that time was white.
Golden Dawn Tabernacle claims to be part of “The Message,” a Christian religious sect whose members believe a 20th-century preacher named William Branham is their prophet. Branham preached against interracial marriage and made misogynistic statements about women. Some offshoots of the sect, including Golden Dawn, have been accused of being cults, an Arizona Daily Star and Lee Enterprises investigation found.
Thorstad said she never believed in the church’s rules and doctrines. She refused to be baptized because she didn’t want the church to have control over her.
And Thorstad wanted to be more than just a homemaker — something she said the church never would have allowed her to do. Thorstad said her mother took her out of high school after her sophomore year.
“‘You don’t need an education,’” she remembers her mom telling her. “You’re never going to amount to anything but a housewife anyway. You need to learn how to cook and clean and stay home so that you can take care of your family when the time comes.’”
“And I didn’t want that. I wanted to be a nurse.”
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Thorstad has now been a licensed practical nurse for five years. She delayed her career when she became a young mother, but she eventually went back to school and earned her high school diploma online.
She is continuing her schooling to get an associate’s degree in the applied science of nursing so she can be a registered nurse.
“I took it in my own hands to pursue what I wanted in life, and didn’t let the church stop me,” she said.
- 11 min to read
Contact reporter Emily Hamer at emily.hamer@lee.net or 262-844-4151. On Twitter: @ehamer7. Contact Tim Steller at tsteller@tucson.com