Two men ordered beaten by Tony Alamo enforcer awarded millions by jury, 5 women raped by Alamo received far less

Forbes   -  Associated Press           June 3, 2011

2 ex-ministry members get $33 million each in suit

By JEANNIE NUSS



LITTLE ROCK, Ark. -- A jury awarded two former members of imprisoned evangelist Tony Alamo's ministry $33 million each on Thursday in response to charges that Alamo ordered them to be beaten.

But Seth Calagna, 21, and Spencer Ondirsek, 20, likely will not see payouts from the judgment anytime soon, said Alamo's attorney John Wesley Hall Jr.

"Tony Alamo Christian Ministries doesn't have that kind of money," he said. "Never has. Never will."

The jury in Texarkana, Ark., deliberated for about two hours before they returned with a verdict in the civil suit, which alleges that Alamo ordered another man, John Kolbek, to beat the young men while they were raised on the ministry's compound in southwest Arkansas.

The jury found Alamo liable for battery, outrage and conspiracy and awarded Calagna and Ondirsek $30 million each in punitive damages, plus another $3 million each to compensate them for past injuries and mental anguish. In comparison, a federal judge ruled last year that five young women whom Alamo sexually assaulted and took as "wives" were entitled to $500,000 each.

Calagna and Ondirsek were previously awarded $1.5 million each from Kolbek after he failed to respond to their lawsuit. They haven't collected any of that money yet, their attorney, W. David Carter of Texarkana, Texas, said. Kolbek died in January.

But Carter said he plans to search for properties on which he can collect the awards from both Kolbek and Alamo.

"We're going to look far and wide to see what properties might be available to pay the judgment," Carter said. "Whatever we find we will execute on."

Alamo's attorney called the sums awarded "outlandish" and said he plans to ask a federal judge to reduce the amounts. He also likely will appeal the verdict.

"It's a long way from being over," Hall said.

Hall had argued that the Bible condones corporal punishment. He wanted to tell jurors about Arkansas law regarding corporal punishment that was on the books when the alleged beatings occurred. But U.S. Magistrate Judge Barry A. Bryant disagreed and didn't include Hall's instructions, part of which were to read: "The fact there was bruising does not make corporal punishment unreasonable. If you find that corporal punishment was reasonably applied and was not excessive, then your verdict should be for Tony Alamo and against Spencer Ondrisek and Seth Calagna."

Hall also said that Thursday's verdict means he'll likely have to file for a change of venue in other cases involving Alamo's ministry.

"It's apparent that Tony Alamo can't get a fair trial in that community," Hall said.

Alamo, whose real name is Bernie LaZar Hoffman, is serving a 175-year term in federal prison in Terre Haute, Ind. He did not appear in federal court for the civil trial because it was too expensive to transport him to Texarkana.

His wife, Sharon, and Calagna's mother, Barbara Calagna, were among several witnesses to testify on his behalf.

Calagna's mother, Barbara Calagna, said the spankings were the best thing to ever happen to her son.

Calagna's attorney disagreed.

"Seth's mother's testimony is a prime example of how blindly people will follow Tony Alamo when they believe he's a prophet of God," Carter said. "She turned her back on her own son and allowed him to be beaten savagely on numerous occasions."

Beyond compensating the two young men, Carter said the suit was designed to prevent other people from following in Alamo's footsteps.

"It's intended to send a message not only to Alamo but to anyone else who might manipulate scripture in an attempt to control others for their own advantage," Carter said.

This article was found at:

http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2011/06/03/business-us-evangelist-civil-suit_8498223.html

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Arkansas Supreme Court upholds lower court ruling that removed parental rights from Tony Alamo cult members

MySanAntonio   -  Texas April 28, 2011

Alamo followers lose bid for parental rights



LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — The Arkansas Supreme Court said Thursday that the seizure of 16 children from a religious compound was based on worries about their safety — not an infringement upon their parents' constitutional right to worship freely.

Seven followers of evangelist Tony Alamo sued the Arkansas Department of Human Services after the agency took their children away in 2008. Prosecutors said Alamo had "married" underage girls and won sexual abuse convictions against him in 2009.

State social workers took the children fearing they might someday be abused, and told the parents that if they wanted them back, the parents had to break their financial dependence on Alamo's ministry. The parents refused.

"The parents were totally dependent upon an organization headed by a convicted sex offender, and ... they refused to believe that child abuse had occurred within the confines" of Alamo's compound near Fouke in southwestern Arkansas," Justice Karen R. Baker noted in ruling against two parents who had six children taken away after they were deemed neglected.

In that case, the father said the Bible permitted marriages between older men and underage girls, and said "he believed his eternal soul would be condemned to damnation if he were to leave the ministry," Baker wrote.

The Department of Human Services said its intent in seizing the children was to protect them from danger, not prohibit their parents from attending Alamo's church. Justices agreed.

"The target of the requirements was not any religious activity or exercise; instead, the goal was to provide a safe environment" apart from Alamo's property, Associate Justice Jim Gunter wrote in a different opinion.

Justices made similar rulings on similar issues in three other cases involving children at the compound. [see links to court documents below]

Attorney John Wesley Hall Jr. said he was "flabbergasted" that Alamo could be considered a threat to the children, given that he was in custody when Miller County Circuit Judge Joe E. Griffin was pondering the children's future.

"The way the order was drafted, the conditions put on the parents violated their rights" to worship as they see fit, Hall said. He said he is considering an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

A man who answered the telephone at Alamo's compound Thursday declined comment. He did not give a name.

This article was found at:

http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/article/Alamo-followers-lose-bid-for-parental-rights-1356777.php

**************************************************************************

Arkansas News  -  April 28, 2011

Court upholds decision to strip Alamo followers of parental rights

By Rob Moritz  |  Arkansas News Bureau

LITTLE ROCK — A Miller County circuit judge’s decision to terminate the parental rights of seven followers of Tony Alamo was upheld today by the Arkansas Supreme Court.

State human services officials removed the 16 minor children from the Tony Alamo Christian Ministries compound in Fouke in 2008. The state Court of Appeals in 2009 upheld their removal.

Miller County Circuit Judge Joe Griffin in 2009 ruled in five separate cases that the 16 children had been neglected and terminated their parents’ parental rights.

The judge concluded that, among other things, the children faced danger of beatings and forced fasts ordered by the evangelist who was convicted in 2009 of transporting underage girls across state lines for sex and sentenced to 175 years in prisons.

In five separate opinions today, the state Supreme Court upheld Griffin’s rulings against Miriam and Albert Krantz, parents of six; Carlos and Sophia Parrish, parents of four; Greg Seago, father of three; Bethany Myers, mother of two, and Alphonzo Reid, father of one.

In each decision, the high court said that the parents lived with their children on Alamo’s compound and that state human services officials told the parents when they removed the children from the compound in 2008 that if they moved away and found jobs outside the Alamo Ministries, they would be able to get custody of their children.

In each case, however, the parents refused to comply.

Justice Paul Danielson, who wrote the opinion involving Seago, said the father of three “failed to remedy the conditions that caused removal by failing to obtain housing and employment separate and apart from (Tony Alamo Christian Ministries), despite DHS’ meaningful efforts.”

*****

The cases are:

Myers v. Arkansas Department of Human Services

Krantz v. Arkansas Department of Human Services

Parrish v. Arkansas Department of Human Services

Reid v. Arkansas Department of Human Services

Seago v. Arkansas Department of Human Services.

This article was found at:

http://arkansasnews.com/2011/04/28/court-upholds-decision-to-strip-alamo-followers-of-parental-rights/

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Lawyer: Evangelist too weak, old for sex crimes

Miami Herald - March 19, 2009

by Jon Gambrell | Associated Press writer

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. -- The new defense lawyer for jailed evangelist Tony Alamo said Thursday that his client's poor eyesight and diminishing physique would have made it impossible for him to have had sex with underage girls, as federal prosecutors claim.

California lawyer Danny Davis told The Associated Press that "it would be physically impossible" for the 74-year-old man to have sex with girls in showers and buses - accusations lodged by authorities who arrested Alamo on Sept. 25.

"As a younger man, he was a strong bull of a man. At 74, he's close to half of the weight," Davis said of his client.

Alamo faces a 10-count federal indictment accusing him of transporting young girls across state lines for sex.

Davis, 63, said that the young girls in Alamo's case may have "cross-contaminated" each other's stories with similar allegations. The lawyer also said Alamo's poor eyesight showed he couldn't have driven any vehicle across a state line and that his followers likely crossed on their own.

Whether Alamo could take part in a sex act would be examined and possibly included in his defense, Davis said.

Davis recently took over Alamo's defense from Little Rock lawyer John Wesley Hall Jr. Davis said Alamo worried that Hall's busy practice might prevent him from focusing on his case.

Davis also represented Alamo in 1991, when the evangelist was accused of child abuse in California stemming from a 1988 beating of an 11-year-old boy at an Alamo compound north of Los Angeles. The case didn't go to trial after Alamo went to federal prison over tax evasion charges.

Davis claimed that case "went away under its own failed merits."

This article was found at:

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation/AP/story/959018.html

Teens given longer time to serve suit on Alamo cult "enforcer"

Arkansas Democrat Gazette - March 19, 2009

by Andy Davis

A judge's ruling Wednesday gives two teenagers an extra three months to find the man they say beat them while they were members of the Tony Alamo Christian Ministries and serve him with a copy of their lawsuit.

But the teenagers' attorney, W. David Carter of Texarkana, Texas, said he doesn't expect to wait that long to move forward with the lawsuit, which seeks damages against the ministry's leader, Tony Alamo, and John Kolbeck, whom authorities have identified as Alamo's "enforcer."

If he can't find Kolbeck in the next month, Carter said, he'll ask U.S. District Judge Harry F. Barnes for permission to serve Kolbeck by publishing a notice of the lawsuit in newspapers in Texarkana and Fort Smith. Kolbeck would have 30 days after the notice is published to respond or risk having a judgment entered for the teenagers by default.

"Since he's on the run and not going to show himself, apparently, voluntarily, that's typically the best way to get reasonable notice to them that they've been sued," Carter said.

In the lawsuit, Spencer Ondrisek and Seth Calagna, who were both 18 when the suit was filed in November, say Kolbeck, 49, beat them with a board, at the direction of Alamo, on multiple occasions while they were in the Tony Alamo Christian Ministries in Fouke and Fort Smith. Both teenagers left the ministry last year.

Kolbeck is wanted on a second-degree battery charge in a beating that police say Calagna received at a ministry warehouse in Fort Smith last year and on a federal charge of unlawful flight to avoid prosecution. He is being sought by the FBI, Fort Smith police and the U.S. Marshals Service.

Under federal court rules, the teenagers had until March 25 to serve Kolbeck with the suit. In January, Carter asked the judge for the deadline to be extended by four months, saying the teenagers hoped Kolbeck "will be apprehended by law enforcement officials during that time and will be available for personal service of process."

In an order Wednesday, Barnes extended the deadline, but by a month less than Carter had requested.

Carter said he has been checking with authorities for any news on the search for Kolbeck, and he has been in talks with a producer for the Fox show America's Most Wanted, which plans to feature the case.

America's Most Wanted producer Diana Nolan said the show has been working on a feature about the case since November and tentatively plans to air it in May, when Alamo is set for trial on sex charges.

"Obviously, any violence against children strikes a chord with our show," said Nolan, noting that the show's host, John Walsh, became an advocate for crime victims after his son Adam was killed in 1981.

Sgt. Levi Risley, a spokesman for the Fort Smith Police Department, said authorities haven't received any recent leads on Kolbeck's whereabouts. He said anyone with information can call the Fort Smith Police Department at (479) 709-5000.

Alamo, 74, has denied ordering beatings. His trial, on charges that he transported five underage girls across state lines for sex over the past 15 years, is set for May 18.

This article was found at:

http://www.nwanews.com/adg/News/255228/

New lawyer signals new strategy in Alamo case

The Associated Press - March 16, 2009

by JON GAMBRELL

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — California lawyer Danny Davis has wanted to separate jailed evangelist Tony Alamo from the abuse allegations that trail his ministry.

"There is a man and there is the myth," Davis said. "He has become a myth in the character of this monstrous felony accusation."

That's what Davis told The Los Angeles Times in 1991 while representing Alamo in a child-abuse case that never went to trial. Now, almost 20 years later, the Beverly Hills lawyer apparently will defend the aging evangelist against federal charges that could leave him behind bars until his death.

Alamo's choice of Davis means the evangelist likely wants to attack the credibility of witnesses who will claim the evangelist took young girls across the state lines for sex.

Davis is best known for his work as a defense lawyer in the McMartin Pre-School molestation trial, one of the nation's longest-running and costliest criminal trials. Defending preschool worker Raymond Buckey, Davis focused on discounting the alleged victims' bizarre accounts of animal mutilation, blood drinking and underground tunnels running through the day-care center. Buckey was twice acquitted after two long trials.

In Alamo's case, Davis will have to contend with allegations that the preacher "married" two young girls and sexually molested them, on top of claims that he took pictures of the girls naked.

Davis did not return calls for comment Monday. The lawyer told the Texarkana Gazette last week that Alamo had "misgivings about the level of preparation" for the May 18 trial.

"My first observation is that in six months I don't see that anything's been done and this alarms me," Davis told the newspaper. "I'll be quickly up to my eyeballs in trying to prepare this case."

Davis will take over the case from John Wesley Hall Jr., a Little Rock criminal defense lawyer who said he already laid much of the groundwork for such a defense. Hall said he and others in his law practice have visited Alamo in jail multiple times, conducted interviews with ministry members and gathered materials from them. He declined to say whether the ministry kept files on ex-members, saying he remained bound by attorney-client privilege.

"The essence of it is (the abuse) didn't happen," Hall said Monday. "These are people with an ax to grind against Tony Alamo Christian Ministries."

Hall remains listed as Alamo's lawyer in the federal docket. Interim U.S. Attorney Debbie Groom declined to comment about prosecutors' preparations for trial.

In 1991, Davis defended the evangelist against felony child-abuse charges over an alleged 1988 beating of an 11-year-old boy at a ministry compound north of Los Angeles. Then, Jeremiah Justin Miller claimed Alamo directed the beating over a speakerphone after he asked a science question during a history class and wore a metal-studded leather scarf, designed by the preacher, without permission.

At a hearing Davis portrayed Miller as an unruly child whose memories had been exaggerated by coaching from his adopted father.

Five years later, prosecutors dropped the charges against Alamo after federal prosecutors sent him to prison over tax evasion charges. At the time, prosecutors said Alamo would have served only five months in prison in convicted in the child-abuse case, something not worth the expense and time of a difficult trial.

This article was found at:

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hVFjRI-s7AtZjYuZbagzq8RWYU7AD96VDLPO0

2 moms in Alamo case fear for kids

Northwest Arkansas Gazette - March 4, 2009

by Andy Davis


When the Tony Alamo Christian Ministries compound in southwest Arkansas was raided in September, an Oklahoma woman who once belonged to the group called everyone she could think of, hoping she might be closer to finding the four children she says her husband ran off with in 2004.

Meanwhile, in Greenwood, another former member worried about her three children, ages 4, 3 and 2. More than a year earlier, she had signed over custody of them to John Kolbeck, who authorities say was responsible for keeping discipline within the ministry, and Kolbeck's wife, Jennifer. After the raid, she feared that the Kolbecks would run.

Since that raid, the Arkansas Department of Human Services has removed 36 children from the ministry, saying they were endangered by practices such as underage marriages and beatings for violations of church rules. Tony Alamo, the group's 74-year-old leader, has been jailed on charges of taking underage girls across state lines for sex. And John Kolbeck, wanted in the beating of a teenage church member, has been declared a fugitive.

Court orders list an additional 92 children as being in danger of abuse. The Human Services Department says they once lived on church property in Fort Smith, Texarkana and Fouke, but have been moved elsewhere, many of them after the raid.

In most cases, the children are thought to be with parents who are hiding. But two mothers, who left the ministry before the raid, are hoping their children will be found.

They are Anna Pugh, who says her husband disappeared into the ministry with four of her children, and Antavia Meggs, who gave her children to the Kolbecks.

"It's really horrible, just thinking, what are they doing to them there?" said Pugh, whose husband disappeared into the ministry with her children. "I'm so afraid they've beaten my son. I'm so afraid my daughter might be married to somebody, and I might not even know it."

Meggs, who was raised in the ministry, said she signed over custody of her children to the Kolbecks after a child-welfare caseworker threatened to take them away.

At the time, she said, she had split up with her husband, had been evicted from her apartment and was living with her brotherin-law and his wife in a motel room in Fort Smith. Since then, Meggs said, she's been working to build a stable home environment for the children, and she hopes to get them back.

"I still don't know that I can get them back, but I, at least, need a chance to try," she said.

The Human Services Department has distributed information on the children to child-welfare agencies in Oklahoma, California and New Jersey, where the ministry has operations, and Texas, because of its proximity to the compound in Fouke, department spokesman Julie Munsell said.

CHILDREN TAKEN

Pugh, 40, lives in a five-bedroom, doublewide mobile home on 3 acres south of Blanchard, Okla. While four of her children are missing, she has six others that include three from her time in the ministry. She stays home with the children while her fiance hauls chemicals for a trucking company.

When she joined the ministry in 1989, Pugh thought she had found the wholesome Christian environment she had sought. She married Don Davis, who worked on construction jobs in the ministry, and they had seven children.

As time passed, however, Pugh began to question the ministry's practices, and she repeatedly clashed with Alamo, her husband and other church members. For her punishment, she would be paddled with a board, rebuked in messages on tapes distributed throughout the ministry or banished to her house for months at a time. In 2000, she separated from her husband and moved out, but her children had to stay behind.

For more than two years, she was not allowed to visit the children or even talk to them on the phone. After she won custody of them in 2003, the children "were scared to death," Pugh said. "Tony had told them that I was a biker, and I had AIDS, and I was a drug addict and I was a stripper and all these horrible things."

After meeting their cousins and seeing Pugh's home, the children began to warm up to her. She and the children spent four weeks at an Ohio center that offers counseling for people who leave cults. Pugh read the Bible with the children, telling them, "If it wasn't God's will for you to be with me, you wouldn't be with me."

Meanwhile, Davis stayed in touch, talking to Pugh and the children by phone, sending gifts on the children's birthdays and paying $527 a month in child support. In December 2004, after Davis said he had been kicked out of the ministry, Pugh let him visit.

He took jewelry boxes, necklaces and dolls for the girls, toy cars for the boys and $200 in child support for Pugh. He asked if he could take the four youngest children for ice cream and to buy some clothes.

The children "were all looking at me, begging to go," Pugh said. "I just couldn't say no to them." Davis left with the children, and they never came back.

In the years that followed, Pugh said, she searched for her children while also dealing with the breakup of her second marriage and struggling to support the children she had. Now and then, Davis would call Pugh's daughters on their cell phones, urging them to join him in the ministry.

Early last year, television psychologist Dr. Phil McGraw took an interest in Pugh's story, and she hoped for a breakthrough. Then, while the show was researching her story, the Oklahoma Department of Human Services took her children after police had to intervene when she got into an argument with one of her teenage daughters.

Pugh said she had lost control of the children and often had angry outbursts, which she blamed in part on the lingering effects of her time in the ministry. At the direction of the department, Pugh attended counseling and took classes on parenting and anger management. Within six months, all the children had been returned.

Now, a caseworker visits every week, and the family's rules are posted on a sign on a living room wall. Among them: When anyone gets upset during a discussion, he or she can say "time out," and the discussion is tabled until everyone calms down.

The department intervention "saved my family," Pugh said. "I am actually happy, and my kids are happy, and we feel like we have a home that's full of love now instead of hurt."

CHILDREN GIVEN UP

Meggs, 22, speaks in a soft voice and often smiles bashfully when asked about her time in the ministry, which her mother joined when Meggs was 2 months old.

Growing up, Meggs was taught that God spoke through Alamo, and she never questioned his teachings. When she was 8, while Alamo was in prison for tax evasion, she went to live in his house at the compound in Fouke but was kicked out a week later, after she poured some oil in a fish tank.

After she was married, in 2003, she worked in the cafeteria of the church in Fort Smith and had three children, a boy and two girls. Her husband, Jessie, who had joined the ministry four years earlier, spent much of his time traveling the country, either handing out religious tracts or as a "rider," someone who accompanies a ministry truck driver in keeping with a rule that church members never venture out alone.

Like Pugh, Meggs often got in trouble for breaking church rules and arguing with other members. In 2006, she and her husband were kicked out of the ministry after someone complained about them arguing loudly in their apartment. They were allowed to return, but shortly afterward, she decided to leave for good.

Because of a throat defect, her son, Micah, had to have a feeding tube put in his stomach three weeks after he was born. When he was 8 months old, she was accused of trying to starve him, and he was sent to live with the Kolbecks. Then, when he was 2, the tube fell out, and the Kolbecks didn't replace it.

When she asked Alamo if she could take Micah to the doctor, she said, "He told me no, that God told him that I was lying about that." She said she was also concerned that another church member had begun spanking Micah in the church day care.

"I've always told myself I'm going to raise my family the opposite of the way my family raised me," Meggs said. "I used to get spanked all the time for every little thing, and it didn't help me at all. It actually made me more stubborn."

But Meggs felt guilty about leaving. When she and her husband separated six months later, she thought she was being punished by God.

The day after a caseworker visited in June 2007, Meggs signed a form agreeing to have the Kolbecks appointed as her children's guardians. It was only later, she said, that Jennifer Kolbeck told her that she would have to go to court to get them back. She spoke with an attorney who advised her to first get a job and establish a stable living environment.

But that proved difficult for Meggs. After giving her children to the Kolbecks, she lived in shelters, briefly reconciled with her husband and had another son, who is now 10 months old. Last summer, she went to live with a former church member in Greenwood, who helped her get a job. In the meantime, the Kolbecks let Meggs visit her children, although they eventually cut the visits back from two or three times a week to once every two months.

The day after the compound was raided, she said, she called Jennifer Kolbeck, who assured her that she wasn't planning to run away with the children. Two days later, she let Meggs talk to the children on the phone. Micah told her they were in Fouke. When Meggs asked which house they were at, someone hung up the phone.

"I called back like 20 times," Meggs said. "That's the last time I talked to Jennifer or my kids."

SOME REUNITED

Since the raid, a few parents have been reunited with their children. Gina Howard had been searching for her three children for eight years. Her 14-year-old daughter was found in the Fouke compound, and her two sons, ages 10 and 12, were picked up in November, her attorney has said. Anthony Lane, whose three children were found in Valparaiso, Ind., on Dec. 2, had been looking for his children for 10 years. Both parents are now working to regain custody of their children, who are in foster care.

Pugh's missing daughter is now 12, and the three sons are 9, 11 and 14. Adding them to her already large family would be a challenge, she said, but one she is eager to take on.

Meggs was able to visit her two younger sisters who were removed from the compound and placed in foster care. But she has received no word on her children.

Last December, she sent an electronic card for her children to Jennifer Kolbeck's e-mail address.

"I HOPE TOO SEE YOU SOON BEFORE CHRISTMAS," she wrote. "BUT JUST INCASE I DONT WE ALL LOVE YOU AND WANT TO SEE YOU SOON."

There was no response.


This article was found at:

http://www.nwanews.com/adg/National/254025

Alamo-Member Parents Denied Custody Again

The Morning News - N.W. Arkansas
February 12, 2009

by Associated Press

TEXARKANA -- A judge presiding over some of the custody cases involving families linked to Tony Alamo Christian Ministries is keeping two sets of children in state custody.

Circuit Judge Jim Hudson said Wednesday the parents of a 16-year-old girl and 13-year-old boy hurt their effort to get their children back when the mother allowed video of a state worker's interview with her daughter to be posted on the Internet.

"There was a finding that (the mother) used an appalling lack of judgment when she distributed her daughter's video nationwide," Hudson said images of the girl being questioned at the Child Advocacy Center.

The video was also aired on TV, and Hudson said the release directly hurt the teenager.

"The foster mother described the daughter. She said that when she (the girl) heard her voice on television she cried and turned the television off," Hudson said.

Hudson said the parents have not complied with other conditions he'd set for them to have their children released from foster care. Hudson has told the parents to cut residential, employment and financial ties with Alamo's ministry. He also directed them to get psychological evaluations, which they have not done, Hudson noted.

Hudson said the family would have another review hearing in six months.

Alamo is jailed without bond, awaiting a federal trial on charges he brought five underage girls across state lines for sex.

Thirty-six children of Alamo-member families have been taken into state custody, and about 100 more are being sought. Testimony in hearings related to Alamo's charges and in custody-related proceedings has detailed alleged sexual and physical abuse of some juveniles within the group. Officials also allege the children were subject to medical and educational neglect.

Regarding the second family, Hudson said the parents have made some progress in meeting his terms to regain custody of a 14-year-old girl and two boys, ages 10 and 12, in foster care.

Hudson said the father continues to live on church property, he hasn't found a job outside the ministry and still depends on Alamo's organization. The father hasn't gotten a mental evaluation, Hudson said.

The mother of the children left Alamo's group years ago. She lives near the foster home where the children are, has a job and is taking parenting classes. The judge said the mother has had a mental evaluation.

Hudson scheduled a hearing in three months to evaluate the parents' progress.

This article was found at:

http://www.nwaonline.net/articles/2009/02/12/news/021309arevangelist.txt

1988 abuse case involving Alamo resurfaces

The Mercury News - Silicon Valley
January 29, 2009

By JON GAMBRELL | Associated Press Writer

LITTLE ROCK, Ark.—Tony Alamo's voice crackled from a speakerphone as four people prepared to beat him on the evangelist's behalf, Jeremiah Justin Miller recalled in court.

Miller said he bled after being struck 140 times with a wooden paddle. His sins: asking a science question during a history class and, without permission, wearing a metal-studded leather scarf Alamo had designed.

"He said that I was a goat among the sheep and he was going to have to beat the devil out of me," Miller told a California courtroom three years after the 1988 incident at Alamo's religious compound north of Los Angeles.

By 1995, prosecutors dropped child abuse charges against Alamo, who said Miller, then 11, exaggerated his tale. The evangelist, now facing federal Mann Act charges in Arkansas, said Miller was an unruly child who needed to be disciplined.

More than two decades after the beating, one man still sought by detectives surrendered last week. Miller, meanwhile, hasn't surfaced since his family won civil suits against Alamo after the Internal Revenue Service seized the evangelist's assets in a tax case.

"The Millers fought the fight for everybody, they paid the price for everybody. They did the work, they took the chances," said Peter N. Georgiades, a Pittsburgh lawyer who represented the family. "They overcame their personal fears. They got the judgment and the IRS took the money."

Miller's case, which saw no action since 1995, sprang back to life when Douglas Christopher walked into a Santa Clarita, Calif., courthouse last week and turned himself in. Christopher, 55, faces an initial hearing Friday morning in municipal court over two felony charges from the 1988 beating, said Shiara Davila, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office.

The case re-emerged as Alamo, 74, faces a 10-count federal indictment accusing him of taking young girls across state lines for sex. Since a Sept. 20 raid on Alamo's compound in Fouke, child welfare officials with the Arkansas Department of Human Services have seized 36 children associated with the evangelist's ministries.

Christopher surrendered at the urging of an Arkansas government agency, said Steve Whitmore, a Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department spokesman. Julie Munsell, a spokeswoman for the Arkansas Department of Human Services, said her agency encouraged Christopher to resolve the criminal case. She declined to comment further.

Christopher is being held without bond on the charges. Christopher's public defender, Jim Bruns, could not be reached for comment. Davila said statutes of limitations didn't affect the case.

During the 1991 court hearing, Miller said church members wrote reports on children's misbehavior. Those reports went to Alamo, who decided on discipline he said God had recommended to him.

About 40 Alamo followers, including Miller's mother, watched as the paddle smacked against Miller's backside, the boy testified. He said he bled so badly he had to wear bandages for more than a week.

Miller's story matches testimony at an October federal detention hearing for Alamo. Then, former followers described suffering through beatings ordered by the evangelist over minor infractions like playing with a spray bottle.

Danny Davis, Alamo's lawyer at the time of the Miller hearing, dismissed the boy's testimony as exaggerated and coached by his ex-ministry member father. Davis served as a defense lawyer in the infamous McMartin Pre-School molestation case, the longest criminal prosecution in U.S. history.

Alamo himself has dismissed the allegations through the years, saying the unruly only face "spankings."

Miller "didn't even cry," Alamo told the Los Angeles Times in 1989. "It was a very light, easy spanking."

It is unclear what evidence sheriff's deputies have to work with now in Miller's case. Whitmore declined to discuss whether deputies have spoken with Miller, who would now be in his early 30s.

"This is an active, open case. We've got reports, we've got everything," Whitmore said. "The sheriff's department, make no mistake about it, is about its business."

Georgiades, who represented Miller's family during years of lawsuits against Alamo, said bringing Miller and his family back into the case might prove impossible.

"We don't communicate," Georgiades said. "A couple of them have disappeared completely, period."

The family won a multimillion legal challenge against Alamo over labor law violations, but the IRS later liquidated much of the church's holdings, including its clothing line. Ministry members made elaborately embroidered denim jackets once sought by celebrities.

The lawyer applauded prosecutors for moving forward on the case, even after a two-decade delay.

"No sane person could think that what these children did warranted any punishment other than maybe a stern look from mom," he said. "The reason he's doing these beatings is to show the other people in the group his power so that if they're thinking about leaving, they won't."

This article was found at:

http://www.mercurynews.com/breakingnews/ci_11585281?nclick_check=1

Alleged Alamo accomplice arrested in California

WREG-TV Memphis - Associated Press
January 24, 2009

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) - A man accused of beating of an 11-year-old boy at a Tony Alamo Christian Ministries compound in Saugus, Calif., has been arrested.

Douglas Christopher, 55, is accused of holding the boy down while a ministry member beat the child with a paddle, causing the boy to bleed.

Jane Robison of the Los Angeles County district attorney's office told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette that Christopher turned himself in Tuesday to California authorities. He faces two counts of felony child abuse. Each offense is punishable by up to six years in jail, she said.

Ministry leader Tony Alamo was accused of ordering the 1988 beating, but prosecutors dropped the charges against him in 1995, citing the time that had past and Alamo's conviction on tax evasion charges the previous year.

Currently, Alamo is in federal custody in Arkansas, awaiting trial on charges that he took girls across state lines for sex. Thirty-six children from the ministry, which also operates in Arkansas, were taken into protective custody by the state. The boy's family later sued the ministry in federal court and was awarded more than $1.4 million.

Information from: Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, http://www.arkansasonline.com

This article was found at:

http://www.wreg.com/Global/story.asp?S=9726850

Pare Alamo ties to get kids back, parents told

Arkansas Democrat Gazette - Northwest Arkansas Edition - January 22, 2009

by Andy Davis

TEXARKANA - Citing a history of underage marriages and beatings for violations of church rules, a judge ruled Wednesday that the parents of 21 children removed from the Tony Alamo Christian Ministries must move off church property and find jobs outside the ministry if they hope to regain custody of their children.

Miller County Circuit Judge Joe Griffin issued the rulings on the eighth and final day of a hearing on 23 children who were removed from the ministry in November and December. In rulings last week and Tuesday, he found that the children had been endangered by the church's practices and had received substandard schooling. Some also had not received childhood vaccinations.

Following the recommendation of the Arkansas Department of Human Services, he ruled last week that two of the children, both boys who have sisters who were taken into custody in September, can be reunited with their parents only if the parents move off church property and gain financial independence. The children will also have to attend schools that have certified teachers. Griffin approved similar plans for the other 21 children Wednesday.

Most of the parents live on church property and work at jobs within the ministry or at church owned businesses. Their children attend ministry schools, and the church pays for the parents' food, clothing, housing and medical care.

"The court found that the witnesses for the state were credible witnesses and felt that a lot of the testimony by the respondents was not credible, it was evasive," Griffin said Wednesday evening, after the hearing adjourned. "The crux of it was I believed the allegations that were made."

About 30 witnesses testified in the hearing at the Juvenile Court Center in Texarkana. Arkansas State Police troopers helped Miller County sheriff's deputies stand guard, and the Texarkana Police Department provided patrols around the Juvenile Court Center.

The hearing was closed to the public, and Griffin issued a gag order barring participants from speaking to reporters about the case.

Tony Alamo, the ministry's 74-year-old leader, is in jail awaiting a May 18 trial on charges that he transported five underage girls across state lines for sex. He and church members have denied that any children were abused.

Throughout most of the hearing, as many as eight church members protested outside the court building, with signs saying "Let Our Children Go," and "Stop Nazi DHS." On Tuesday, the number had dwindled to two, and no protesters showed up Wednesday. A call to the church office in Fouke wasn't immediately returned Wednesday evening.

None of the 23 children was alleged to have been sexually abused, but the ministry was found to have a history of allowing girls as young as 12 to be married, with the most recent wedding occurring at least a year ago. Griffin said church members have consistently testified that they believe the Bible allows girls to be married when they begin menstruating, although they claim that the church nevertheless does not allow girls to marry until they are 18. The underage marriages were performed in the church and were not legally sanctioned, Griffin said.

The judge also found a pattern of "excessive physical abuse that was called paddling." He said one girl was held down by women while another woman hit her with a board.

In another instance, "one of the young men was hit so many times he bled through his pants, and then there were others that their bodies kept the signs of the beating by bruises or marks and so forth for weeks and up to a month," Griffin said.

The teachers at the compound in Fouke were not certified by the state, and several of them lacked high school diplomas, Griffin said.

"One of them only finished the sixth grade," he said. "Many of them didn't get past the ninth or 10th grade."

Their students also often didn't finish high school, Griffin said.

"A majority of those kids never get past the ninth or 10th grade," Griffin said. "A lot of the young girls historically have gotten married before they finished what would be the 12th grade, and then the boys just simply drop out."

A hearing to check on the parents' progress toward meeting the conditions in Griffin's order was set for March 12.

During the eight-day hearing, Griffin ordered three parents jailed for contempt of court. Two of them, Don Thorne, 54, of Texarkana and Bethany Myers, 35, of Fouke have children placed in foster care but have refused to say where their other children are. Another parent, Debra Ondrisek, was jailed after she refused to answer questions about images of ministry children that were posted on a Web site.

Griffin said the parents will remain in jail until they cooperate.

"I put them on notice that whenever they decided to change their positions as far as answering the questions posed to them in the courtroom, they could notify the court and I'd give them an immediate hearing," Griffin said.

With Griffin's rulings, judges have now approved the removal of 30 of the 36 children taken into protective custody and placed in foster care since the ministry's compound in Fouke was raided on Sept. 20.

Court orders issued in Sebastian and Miller counties in November named 128 children believed to be at risk. The Human Services Department is continuing to search for 92 of them.

As in Wednesday's ruling, judges said after hearings in November that six girls removed from the Fouke compound in September can eventually be reunited with their parents, but only if the parents sever some of their ties with the ministry. The parents in those cases have said they plan to appeal the rulings.

The 14 boys and nine girls whose hearing concluded Thursday are from nine families and ranged in ages from 16 months to 17 years. Fifteen lived at the Fouke compound, two lived at a house in Texarkana and four lived in the Fort Smith area.

In addition to those children, a boy who was taken into custody in November turned 18 last month and has opted to stay in the fostercare system so the state will help pay his educational expenses. An additional six children were found at a home in Valparaiso, Ind., on Dec. 2. A hearing on their custody status is set for Jan. 30.

This article was found at:

http://www.nwanews.com
/adg/National/250168

Judge upholds taking of Alamo church kids

Arkansas Democrat Gazette - January 21, 2009

by Andy Davis

TEXARKANA - A judge on Tuesday upheld the removal of 18 children from the Tony Alamo Christian Ministries, saying the children were endangered by the ministry's history of punishing misbehavior with beatings and of allowing underage marriages.

Miller County Circuit Judge Joe Griffin also ordered a member of the ministry jailed for contempt after she refused to answer questions about images of ministry children that were posted on a Web site.

Griffin issued his ruling on the removal of the children at the end of the seventh day of a hearing on 23 ministry children who were taken into protective custody and placed in foster care in November and December. On Jan. 14, Griffin upheld the removal of five children, all boys who have sisters who were taken into custody in September.

The 18 children whose cases Griffin ruled on Tuesday include eight girls and 10 boys from five families.

None of the children were alleged to have been sexually abused, but they were deemed to be at risk because of a history of underage marriages within the church, Griffin told reporters after the hearing adjourned for the day Tuesday.

"You've got allegations that involve children who were married, not these children, but other children that got married under 15 years of age, allegedly some at 12," Griffin said.

He added that, while the ministry's leader, Tony Alamo, has said he does not allow underage marriages in the church, he and his followers believe that the Bible says girls are old enough to be married when they reach puberty.

"The consistent testimony is, they still believe marriage is proper when a young lady reaches the age of puberty," Griffin said. "The number 12 years has been used consistently.

"Of course, if the adult male is 18 or older that had sexual contact with the person, that would be in violation of the law."

Arkansas Code 5-14-103 defines rape to include having sex with someone younger than 14 if the defendant is more than three years older than the victim. Under Arkansas Code 5-14-127, fourth-degree sexual assault includes someone 20 or older having sex with someone younger than 16.

Griffin said some of the children were also alleged to have been beaten, and others were deemed to be endangered by the church's practices of administering beatings for violations of church rules.

He said he also found the children had been educationally and medically neglected. He did not elaborate on that finding, but Miller County Circuit Judge Jim Hudson found in an earlier case that ministry children had not received childhood vaccinations and were not taught by certified teachers or registered as homeschooled students.

The hearing was closed to reporters, and Griffin has issued a gag order barring participants from speaking with reporters about the case.

Griffin's ruling means the 18 children will remain in foster care for the time being, but he did not say whether they can eventually be reunited with their parents or under what conditions. He is expected to approve a plan addressing that issue today.

In previous cases, Griffin and Hudson have ruled that the parents must move off of church property and find jobs outside the ministry if they hope to regain custody of their children.

Since the ministry's compound in Fouke was raided on Sept. 20, 36 children have been taken into protective custody by the Human Services Department and placed in foster care. The department is still looking for 92 others who are named in a pair of court orders issued in Miller and Sebastian counties as being at risk of abuse.

Alamo, the ministry's 74-yearold leader, is in jail awaiting a May 18 trial on charges that he transported five girls across state lines for sexual purposes over the past 15 years.

After the hearing adjourned for the day Tuesday evening, Debra Ondrisek of Texarkana, the mother of two children who have been placed in foster care, was escorted by sheriff's deputies to a patrol car that would take her to the Miller County jail.

Griffin said Ondrisek had refused to answer questions about images of ministry children that were recently posted on the Internet. She will remain in jail until she answers the questions, Griffin said.

Ondrisek joins two other ministry members who have been jailed during the hearing. Don Thorne, 54, of Texarkana, who has a 13-year-old son in foster care, has been in jail since Jan. 13 for refusing to say where his two other children are. Bethany Myers, 35, of Fouke, who has three sons in custody, was jailed Thursday after refusing to disclose the whereabouts of her three daughters.

Griffin has said that Thorne and Myers could remain in jail indefinitely unless they tell him where their children are.

Someone who is willfully disobeying a court order can be held in jail until they comply, said Paula Casey, a professor at the University of Arkansas law school and former U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas.

"The courts generally find that the contemptor holds the key to the jail in his pocket, and he can purge the contempt by providing the information the court is seeking," Casey said.

But Thorne and Myers would have to be released if the issue becomes moot. That would happen if the children are found or when the children turn 18 and no longer fall under the Human Services Department's jurisdiction.

This article was found at:

http://www.nwanews.com/adg/News/250100/

2nd parent jailed in Tony Alamo ministries case

The Associated Press - January 16, 2008

TEXARKANA, Ark. (AP) — An Arkansas judge has jailed a second member of evangelist Tony Alamo's ministry for refusing to say where her three daughters are.

Circuit Judge Joe Griffin in Texarkana says he had no other choice Thursday but to find the mother in contempt of court. A man in a separate case was jailed for the same reason earlier this week.

Griffin is presiding over a hearing to determine the fate of 23 children taken into protective custody amid allegations of physical and sexual abuse by leaders of Alamo's ministry. The state is searching for dozens of other children.

The 74-year-old Alamo faces trial on federal charges of transporting females across state lines for sex. He denies the allegations but says his religion allows marrying girls when they reach puberty.

This article was found at:

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hVFjRI-s7AtZjYuZbagzq8RWY
U7AD95OFLEO0

Follower of Tony Alamo jailed for hiding children

Texarkana Gazette - January 14, 2009

By: Lynn LaRowe | Texarkana Gazette

A Tony Alamo follower was found in contempt of court, arrested and jailed during custody proceedings Tuesday for failing to reveal the whereabouts of two of his children.

“He hid the kids out with knowledge of the court order,” said Circuit Judge Joe Griffin as he left the Miller County Juvenile Court Center in downtown Texarkana after dusk. “I gave him a means by which he could purge his contempt.”

The man, led from court in handcuffs just a few minutes before Griffin emerged, apparently didn’t take the judge up on his offer.

One of the man’s children was among 20 seized in November after circuit judges in Miller and Sebastian counties issued removal orders naming more than 125 children of Tony Alamo followers. But the whereabouts of two of the man’s children and his wife, are unknown.

Since Griffin and Sebastian County Circuit Judge Mark Hewett signed identical orders allowing the Arkansas Department of Human Services to take the children, only 36 have been located.

[...]

Testimony in the November adjudication hearings alleged beatings were administered by Alamo, his wives and a fugitive associate of ministry children. Forced fasts, underage marriages, polygamy, lack of medical care and a failure to meet basic educational needs were also cited as reasons the girls remained in foster care.

Reunification would be a possibility only if the parents severed economic, residential and employment ties with the ministry, Hudson and Griffin ruled.

Many of the parents have expressed a belief that a Vatican-controlled federal government has taken the children in reaction to Tony Alamo’s controversial interpretations of the Bible.

This article was found at:

http://www.religionnewsblog.com/23167/tony-alamo-27

Ark. official: Kids in Alamo case are being hidden

The Associated Press - January 14, 2009

By JON GAMBRELL

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — Parents or followers of a jailed evangelist have been hiding children sought by state welfare officials, the state director of human resources said Wednesday.

John Selig said the Tony Alamo Christian Ministries routinely ferries members across the nation to churches in California and elsewhere. The practice and the ministry's secrecy have stymied officials trying to find as many as 100 children named in court orders allowing the state to take them into protective custody, he said.

"They may have gotten some word that we were about to come in, whether they knew about the court order or not," Selig told The Associated Press. "They may have just said, 'Let's take them somewhere else.'"

Protective orders filed in Arkansas courts carry no weight outside the state, further complicating the effort. Selig said his agency has talked with other states about locating the children. So far, 36 children from the ministry have been taken into custody, six of them from outside Arkansas.

Initially, Arkansas officials took six girls into custody when state police and the FBI raided the ministry's compound in Fouke on Sept. 20. Another 18 children from passenger vans traveling in Arkansas near the line with Texas were seized Nov. 18. Family members said the ministry wanted to take the children to a park. A total of six other children were taken elsewhere in the state that same day or on Dec. 12.

Miller County Circuit Judge Joe Griffin, who is presiding over a hearing in Texarkana to decide the fate of 23 of the children, ordered the father of one of them jailed Tuesday after the man refused to say where two of his other children were. The judge found the man in contempt of court.

The father attended a court hearing Wednesday, but later returned to the Miller County jail, sheriff's deputies said.

Selig on Wednesday would not comment on the father's contempt citation but said finding the children continues to be difficult because the juveniles "seem to have disappeared rather quickly."

"The problem is we don't have real good information," Selig said. "We work closely with the FBI, but it's hard to get real good information where the kids are at any particular time because they move around in the ministry a lot anyway."

Alamo is said to have ministries and business operations in a number of states, including Colorado, New Jersey, Oklahoma and Tennessee. Child welfare officials in California previously visited an Alamo compound north of Los Angeles to search for children, but none were taken into custody.

Federal prosecutors said Wednesday that FBI agents have found a missing sex offender from Nevada living inside a warehouse in Fort Smith owned by the ministries. Jonathon Patrick Curry, 49, appeared in federal court on a charge of failing to register as a sex offender.

Curry served more than five years in a Nevada prison after being convicted of attempted lewdness with a child under 14.

Julie Munsell, a spokeswoman for the Arkansas Department of Human Services, said she was unaware of Curry or any children living at the warehouse.

Alamo, 74, remains held without bond on a 10-count federal indictment accusing him of violating the Mann Act when he allegedly took five young girls across state lines for sex. The preacher has denied the allegations. He has said females should be married off at puberty to avoid living in sin but maintains that his ministry has always followed the law.

Former followers have accused Alamo of ordering beatings and taking child "brides."

John Wesley Hall Jr., a lawyer representing Alamo, dismissed the idea that Alamo would issue orders to hide children from jail.

"Does anyone think he's counseling anything like that when his calls are recorded?" Hall wrote in an e-mail to the AP.

This article was found at:

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hVFjRI-s7AtZjYuZbagzq8RWY
U7AD95N956O0

Prosecutor: Nev. sex offender at Alamo property

Associated Press - January 14, 2009

FORT SMITH, Ark. (AP) - Federal prosecutors say a Nevada sex offender was arrested at a warehouse associated with the Tony Alamo Christian Ministries.

Jonathon Patrick Curry faces a charge of failing to register as a sex offender. U.S. Assistant Attorney Christopher Plumlee told The Associated Press that Curry was arrested at a Fort Smith warehouse owned by the ministry of the jailed evangelist. Authorities had been actively looking for Curry.

A court affidavit by an FBI agent says Curry had a sign on a room at the warehouse reading "Keep Out Jon Curry's Rm."

Alamo, 74, is in jail while awaiting trial on a 10-count federal indictment accusing him of taking young girls across state lines for sex. Alamo has denied the allegations.

This article was found at:

http://www.kfsm.com/Global/story.asp?S=9675292

Web gets a peek at Alamo case

Texarkana Gazette - January 1, 2009

Girl’s confidential court documents placed on Internet

By Lynn LaRowe | Texarkana Gazette

A video of a 16-year-old girl speaking with a forensic interviewer the day after she was removed from Tony Alamo’s residence in Fouke, Ark., has been placed on the Internet. Filmed at the Child Advocacy Center in Texarkana, the video was intended only for use by law enforcement, the courts and child welfare officials.

The Arkansas Department of Human Services filed a motion late Wednesday afternoon to have the hosting Website, inquisitionupdate.org, remove the video and related material.

“The damage is already done,” said Julie Munsell, DHS director of communications. “This is a confidentiality issue. We want to protect these children. This is also preventive.”

According to the Website, the video, a letter signed with the girl’s mother’s name, photos and copies of court documents were handed over by the girl’s own parents. DHS wants a judge in Miller County to issue an order forbidding distribution of court documents and other evidence, such as video interviews, in the future.

[...]

Wednesday, Circuit Judge Jim Hudson granted a motion filed by the girl’s parents and the father of another girl placed in foster care in September to have the court appoint lawyers at state expense to replace the ones Alamo Ministries hired to represent them during final custody hearings in November.

During those proceedings, lawyers representing the parents, Marshall Moore and David James of Texarkana, were provided with documents, videos and any other evidence DHS intended to use against them during custody proceedings as prescribed by law. That evidence might have then been available to the parents as well.

[...]

In the interview video, the girl describes Alamo in glowing terms, denies he’s ever molested anyone and expresses a belief that natural disasters around the world are the work of God and a sign the end is near. She also denied ever having been abused.

“(The girl’s mother) stated, ‘I want John Kolbek to beat (the girl). (The girl) was no older than 12 years at the time of her beating. (The girl) was also beaten with a paddle when she was 14 years of age during one of three beatings which (her 18-year-old brother) suffered at the hands of John Kolbek at the direction of Tony Alamo,” said the adjudication order Hudson wrote following final custody hearings for the girl and one other Nov. 21.

John Kolbek is wanted by federal and state officials. In Sebastian County in Arkansas, he faces a charge of second-degree battery in connection with the alleged beating of Seth Calagna, an 18-year-old former Alamo follower. Calagna was allegedly beaten with a 6-foot-long wooden paddle that allegedly left him bloody and bruised. Federal officials have issued a warrant for Kolbek’s arrest for unlawful flight from prosecution.

[...]

In the video, the girl said she believes girls should be able to marry when they reach puberty. “That’s when your body’s able to have children. Why would God make it that way if you weren’t supposed to?” the girl said.

[...]

Hudson’s Nov. 21 ruling included a plan for reunification if the parents would agree to sever economic, residential and employment ties with the church.

“The court finds that (the parents) provide valuable services to Tony Alamo Ministries, on average 40 hours per week. Though the parents state this is voluntary, the Tony Alamo Ministries, in effect, provide room, board, and all living expenses to (the parents),” said Hudson’s order signed Wednesday granting the parents permission to use lawyers from the Arkansas Public Defender’s Commission in future proceedings.

“(The parents) were provided legal services for the trial of this matter by the Tony Alamo Ministries in an amount between $17,000 and $20,000 but that group has refused to pay any of the parents’ expenses for an appeal,” Hudson’s order said.

“Today, they cannot retain appellate counsel or pay the costs of appeal. They can, and should be required to pay at least some legal expenses at the conclusion of this case.”

An appeal by the parents means a higher court will be asked to review the transcripts from Hudson’s court and determine if his ruling to keep the girls in foster care was just.

In his adjudication orders for the two girls assigned to his court, Hudson found as fact that Alamo directed beatings, engages in polygamy and that the church condones the “informal, invalid, marriages between children under the age of 16 to adult males over the age of 21, and in many instances decades older than the age of 21.”

[...]

This article was found at:

http://www.religionnewsblog.com/23116/tony-alamo-24

Lawyer in Alamo case: Bible no defense for abuse

WAAYTV - Alabama December 30, 2008
Associated Press

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) - A lawyer suing jailed evangelist Tony Alamo over alleged abuse says the preacher's right to religious freedom doesn't allow him to beat children.

In federal court filings this week, W. David Carter wrote that protecting the public trumps constitutional protections afforded to religion. Alamo's lawyer said in a court filing last week that the Bible requires spanking unruly children, and he suggested that Alamo had permission from church parents to discipline their children.

The 74-year-old Alamo faces trial in February on charges he took children across state lines for sex.

Alamo was convicted of tax-related charges in 1994 in Memphis, Tenn., and served four years in prison after the IRS said he owed the government $7.9 million. Prosecutors in that case argued that Alamo was a flight risk and a polygamist who preyed on married women and girls in his congregation.

Alamo once had a clothing store in Nashville, Tenn., as well as a church and a downtown mission there.

This article was found at:

http://www.waaytv.com/Global
/story.asp?S=9598112

Parents of 5 kids removed from Alamo cult ask their return

Arkansas Democrat Gazette
December 18, 2008

by Andy Davis

TEXARKANA - The parents of five boys who have been placed in foster care said Wednesday that they have left the Tony Alamo Christian Ministries and will work together to regain custody of their children.

"We're hopeful that we can get our kids back, the sooner the better," Jose Avila said, standing next to his wife, Becky, at the Miller County Courthouse in Texarkana. "We're going to work and do everything we can to get them back, so they can be back with their dad and mom."

The Avilas spoke briefly after attending a hearing on whether their 17-year-old son will remain in foster care until he turns 18 later this month. Testimony in the hearing began Wednesday and will continue today.

Earlier, at the Juvenile Court Center in Texarkana, the Avilas waived their right to an initial hearing on allegations concerning four of their other sons, who range in age from 8 to 14. A hearing on the custody status of those children was set for Jan. 14.

The f ive brothers are among 36 children affiliated with the Alamo ministry who were taken into protective custody amid allegations that children in the ministry have been physically and sexually abused.

Federal and state authorities raided the ministry's compound in Fouke on Sept. 20. Tony Alamo, its 74-year-old leader, was arrested in Arizona five days later on charges that he transported an underage girl across state lines for sexual purposes.

The Avilas' 17-year-old son was among three boys taken into custody Nov. 18 at the Juvenile Court Center, where they had been attending a hearing on the custody status of two of the girls taken in the September raid.

The other four Avila boys were found at a residence in Arkansas on Friday evening. The Arkansas Department of Human Services is continuing to look for 92 or more children whose parents are associated with the ministry.

The Human Services Department contends that the practices of the ministry, which include beatings with a 3-footlong paddle for seemingly minor rule infractions, place children at risk of abuse. According to a report from the Fort Smith Police Department, a former church member named the 17-year-old Avila boy as one of several members that she had seen receive beatings.

Attorney Pamela Fisk of Texarkana, Texas, was appointed to represent Jose Avila shortly after the 17-year-old was taken into custody, and Miller County Circuit Judge Kirk Johnson on Wednesday appointed Fisk to represent Becky Avila as well.

The couple separated about eight years ago. Fisk said Tuesday that Jose Avila also left the ministry at that time, but he clarified Wednesday that he continued to attend services at the church in Fort Smith until recently.

Even before the Sept. 20 raid, the couple had begun working toward reconciliation and had been distancing themselves from the church, Fisk said. They still live apart in the Fort Smith area but are looking for a home together, she said.

"They're going to work together to get the children back," Fisk said.

One of the younger Avila children has Down's syndrome, Fisk said. The couple also has a grown son who left the church and is in the military.

While they waited for the court proceedings to start Wednesday, the Avilas, accompanied by their mothers, sat together and chatted amicably.

"It's sad that it happened, but we're getting closer" to regaining custody of the children, Jose Avila, 55, who works at a Trane Inc. plant, said afterward. "We've hardly had a good night's sleep since it happened."

At the hearing, Johnson heard about 20 minutes of testimony, via conference call, from a former Alamo ministry member who said she had been beaten and had witnessed other beatings, Fisk said. Hearings in child welfare proceedings are closed to the public.

The Avilas' 17-year-old son did not attend the hearing because he is living in a foster home elsewhere in the state, and the judge feared that icy roads would make traveling to the hearing treacherous.

At the conclusion of the hearing, Johnson will decide whether to place the boy with his parents or keep him in foster care until he turns 18 on Dec. 28.

When he is 18, the boy could ask for his case to be closed, or he could remain in the foster care system while he attends college or trade school or works toward his high school diploma. In that case, the state would pay for his educational and living expenses until he turns 21, but the judge could impose restrictions on his association with the church.

Attorney Nelson Shaw of Texarkana, Texas, who was appointed to represent the boy, said he will encourage the boy to stay in foster care to receive the state assistance.

"I'd like for him to get as much education as possible," Shaw said.

This article was found at:

http://www.nwanews.com
/adg/News/246960/

4 boys taken into custody from Alamo ministry

WXVT-TV Delta News - December 12, 2008

Associated Press

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) - The seizure of 4 young brothers associated with Tony Alamo Christian Ministries in Arkansas has raised to 36 the number of children taken into custody by state child-welfare authorities.

Julie Munsell, spokeswoman for the state Department of Human Services, said in an e-mail this evening that the four boys, all under 18, were taken into state custody in Arkansas about 5:45 p.m. today. She said no other details were available.

Since a Sept. 20 raid on Alamo's compound at Fouke in southwest Arkansas, state officials have seized 36 children associated with the jailed evangelist's ministries over stories of alleged beatings and sexual abuse.

Alamo, 74, remains held without bond on charges that he violated the Mann Act, a federal law that bans carrying women or girls across state lines for "prostitution or debauchery, or for any other immoral purpose." He has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

This article was found at:

http://www.wxvt.com/Global/story.asp?S=9514343&nav=menu1344_2

Judge: 6 kids in Alamo case must stay in state custody

Arkansas Democrat Gazette
December 9, 2008

by Dave Hughes

FORT SMITH — Six children removed last week from an Indiana home connected with the Tony Alamo Christian Ministries will remain in Arkansas Department of Human Services custody for at least another month.

Sebastian County Circuit Court Judge Mark Hewett made the ruling Monday after a closed hearing.

Department spokesman Julie Munsell said Hewett will hold another hearing on the custody of the children in 30 to 60 days.

Monday’s hearing also was held to give Hewett a chance to determine whether Arkansas acted correctly in taking the children into custody last week, Munsell said.

The children are on a list of more than 120 youths affiliated with Alamo Ministries that authorities are trying to find, Munsell said. The FBI picked up the six last week in Valparaiso, Ind., after agents said they received information that the children were taken from Alamo-controlled homes in Fort Smith.

All six children are siblings. Anthony Lane of Texarkana is the father of three of them — two girls and a boy — and was at Monday’s hearing.

Neither Lane nor his attorney, Joel W. Price of Fort Smith, would comment after the hearing, saying Hewett ordered them not to talk to reporters about the case. Hewett presides over juvenile cases in the 12 th Judicial District, cases normally closed to the public.

Lane told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette last week that he had been looking for his children since he was kicked out of Alamo’s church 10 years ago.

On Sept. 25, Price filed a petition on Lane’s behalf in circuit court in Fort Smith for paternity, custody and visitation determinations and for an order that Lane’s ex-wife, Lesia Lashawn Heffner, appear in court with their three children.

The petition was filed less than a week after the Sept. 20 raid on Alamo’s compound in Fouke, where Alamo and many of his followers lived.

The file doesn’t show that Heffner ever appeared in court on the petition. A hearing in the case has been scheduled for Feb. 2 in Fort Smith before Circuit Judge Jim Spears.

The petition said Lane and Heffner lived together from 1989 to 1996, during which he fathered the two girls, now 11 and 13.

A year after their breakup, he learned Heffner and the two girls were living in Fort Smith at a boarding house maintained by the Alamo Ministries. After a month of visits, she and the Alamo church invited him to stay, the petition stated.

Lane stayed in a boarding house for male members of the Alamo church until he received a taped message from Alamo, who was in prison at the time, stating that Lane and Heffner had to be married in Alamo’s church before they could live together.

The petition said the marriage was performed in the church but “no legal registration of the ceremony was made.” Lane worked without pay for Alamo Enterprises for about two months before trying to persuade Heffner to leave the church with him.

He wanted his family out of the church because he saw a 13-year-old girl marry a 40-yearold man in Alamo’s church and feared the same could happen to his daughters, the petition stated.

“The defendant [Heffner ] ‘put him on report to Tony,’ and Tony Alamo’s ‘wives’ read the report to Tony and Tony Alamo put the plaintiff [Lane ] out of the church,” the petition stated.

At the time, Heffner was pregnant with their third child, who was born in June 1998, according to the petition.

Fort Smith attorney Roy Gean III responded on Heffner’s behalf in an Oct. 31 motion that the petition should be dismissed because Heffner and the children were residents of Indiana and never were residents of Arkansas.

Price responded 10 days later that a Sebastian County process server discovered that Heffner had been issued an Arkansas driver’s license on July 5, 2007, that listed her address as 5201 Spradling Ave., Apartment 1 C, in Fort Smith.

The process server was unable to locate Heffner at that address or at the Tony Alamo church at 4401 Windsor Drive.

Alamo, 74, was arrested Sept. 25 in Arizona and remains in federal custody. An indictment unsealed last week accused him of transporting five girls across state lines for illegal sexual activity over the past 14 years.

This article was found at:

http://www.nwanews.com/adg/National/245961