Ignite Life Center Associate Pastor’s Son Arrested
On February 19, 2024, the son of Ignite Life Center (ILC) associate pastor Jose Cruz, Noel Cruz, was arrested on a warrant for an August 2021 incident of lewd or lascivious battery against a person under 16 years old. An anonymous tipper offered direct evidence of their relationship.
Noel Cruz is the third person to be arrested for committing sex crimes against minors at ILC. Last July, a former church employee, Gabriel Hemenez, was arrested and charged with two counts of lewd or lascivious molestation and one count of attempted sexual battery against a minor.
Two weeks later, the son of ILC head pastor Mark Vega, Christian Vargas, was arrested and charged with lewd or lascivious battery against a person under 16 and lewd or lascivious conduct by a person 18 years of age or older.
The anonymous tipper who shared the photo made a statement accusing the executive team at ILC of failing to report the sexual offenses when they learned about them.
“During a meeting, the senior pastors, Mark and Lisa Vega, their son Christian, along with the associate pastor Jose Cruz, his son Noel, and the victim were present. Other individuals aware of the situation include Esther Omeben and public relations manager Nicole Gomez, who are not only part of the executive pastor's team but also serve as center directors at Urban Strategies, the federal program located at Ignite Life Center, along with Nick Bruce and other pastoral staff.
During the meeting, they were informed about the actions of both perpetrators, Noel Cruz and Christian Vargas. Instead of reporting these incidents as mandated by the prevention of sexual abuse training that they took, they decided it was best to handle them internally. This situation parallels what happened in the Gabriel case, where similar incidents were handled internally, leading one of the victims to eventually speak out.
The victim that Noel is being charged for is also one of Christian’s victims, but not for any of the current charges that Christian has right now. My understanding is that because of the Romeo and Juliet laws, they were too close in age, so no charges were pressed, but the meeting involved the victim with both Noel and Christian.
I know that they knew about it and didn’t do anything, and they also encouraged it to stay internally. I don’t know where their sons would have learned the behavior from, but it’s weird that the pastors are okay with keeping these things private. Especially since everyone had to take the prevention of sexual abuse training that mandated us to report such activities.”
Noel Cruz’s bond has been set at $100,000. Vargas was previously released after posting $40,000 bail. Hemenez's bond was not paid, as it was set at $3 million.
All the defendants from ILC have their cases proceeding in March. Cruz will have his plea in front of a judge on March 12. Hemenez has a scheduled change of plea on March 6; he previously pleaded not guilty. Vargas has a case management hearing scheduled for March 4.
Edited 02/20/23: Mistakenly reported that Noel Cruz had a previous sexual battery and kidnapping charge in 2016 due to the perpetrator having the same name and also being from Alachua County.
Edited April 29, 2025: Article stated Noel Cruz was charged in February 2024. He was charged in October 2023 via sworn complaint and arrested on a warrant in February 2024.
Edited Aug 6, 2025: Corrected Noel Cruz's bond, (originally stated $150,000), changed headline to “Ignite Life Center Associate Pastor’s Son Arrested” from “Associate Pastor’s Son Arrested at Ignite Life Center,” as Noel Cruz’s location of arrest hasn’t been independently verified (mistook incident location for arrest location on incident report), fixed grammatical errors, added photo captions, added acronym for ILC and updated format.
