2009 Alamo Trial Court Transcript: Prosecutor Kyra Jenner’s Closing Arguments
Tony Alamo News will occasionally present excerpts from Tony Alamo’s July 2009 trial to provide those interested with a more detailed record of courtroom events beyond what was reported in the news media. In particular, we hope current Alamo members and sympathizers will use this opportunity to weigh for themselves the evidence and arguments on which Tony Alamo’s conviction was based.
We start with the closing arguments of Prosecutor Kyra Jenner.
MS. JENNER: Thank you, Your Honor.
The primary issue is purpose of travel. In fact, whether Tony Alamo intended for these girls to travel in interstate commence, which means crossing state lines, for sexual purposes. The defense claims, through their witnesses, that the young girls traveled only to help Mr. Alamo conduct his church business. This claim is unbelievable.
According to testimony from Tony Alamo loyalists, Tony Alamo has followers worldwide. From that pool of worldwide followers, do you believe that the only office workers Tony Alamo could find were underage girls? This defies credibility.
When you examine the purpose for which the minor girls were transported across state lines you will see there simply is no other explanation for their travel across state lines other than for them to be Tony Alamo’s sexual companions. Let’s look at each count of the indictment and analyze the purpose of each girl’s travel across state lines.
Count 1, Jane Doe 1. Jane Doe 1 was 13-years old in 2004 when Tony Alamo took her on a bus from Fouke, Arkansas to California. She testified that she was regularly required to have sexual intercourse with the defendant before her departure on this bus trip to California. She testified that she was summoned to his bedroom on the bus in route to California for sexual intercourse. She testified Tony Alamo had repeated sexual contact with her while she was in California. She testified that Tony Alamo had repeated sexual intercourse with her when she returned to Fouke, Arkansas from California. Jane Doe 1 said in her very own words, “The only thing he used me for was sex.”
In Count 1 the evidence is clear that Tony Alamo’s sole purpose of transporting Jane Doe 1 across state lines when she left Arkansas, traveled to California and was brought back to Arkansas was to be returned back here to this state for her to be available as Tony Alamo’s sexual partner.
When the defendant resumed having her back here in Arkansas as his sexual partner, the pattern of his predatory conduct continued. The defendant’s sexual intercourse with Jane Doe 1 beginning in Arkansas before the trip, in route to California on the trip, while in California during the trip and once they returned to Arkansas was rape. It is rape when a perpetrator is 69-years of age and the child is 13 and the sexual act was intercourse, meaning vaginal penetration by the defendant’s penis.
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury this rape happened right here in the State of Arkansas when the defendant brought Jane Doe 1 back to Arkansas, traveling across state lines to return to his bedroom in Fouke, Arkansas.
Let’s look at the purpose for Jane Doe 1’s travel in 2005, which is charged in Count 2. We know that by 2005 Jane Doe 1, who was now 14, and her mother and her siblings had decided to leave Tony Alamo’s organization. Jane Doe 1 and her mother and her siblings left and went to live in Colorado Springs with the grandfather. They did not live there very long. That was because Jane’s mother was persuaded to return to the church. Jane Doe 1 and her family were provided bus tickets with church funds to travel from Colorado Springs, Colorado to Saugus, California. After arriving in Saugus, California around August of 2005, the defendant separated Jane Doe 1 from her mother and her siblings and placed Jane Doe 1 in his private bungalow that adjoined his bungalow. Jane Doe 1 testified that while living in the bungalow adjoining the defendant’s bungalow in Saugus, she was called to provide massage duty. She provided massages to Tony Alamo and those massages led to sexual intercourse. Jane Doe 1 stayed several weeks at the bungalow in California in 2005 at Tony Alamo’s direction and control. Tony Alamo left Saugus, California before Jane Doe 1 departed the state, but he later instructed her to return to Fouke, Arkansas. He arranged for Jane Doe 1’s return to Arkansas with Dave and Mary Ann Scheff, church members who blindly and loyally follow Tony Alamo’s directions. The Scheffs returned Jane Doe 1 to Arkansas after Hurricane Katrina weather-related concerns subsided.
In Count 2, Jane Doe 1 left California at the defendant’s direction. She traveled back across many state lines to return to Fouke, Arkansas and her return home was simply for the purpose to serve as Papa Tony’s wife. The sexual intercourse that occurred between Jane Doe 1 and the defendant in Arkansas upon her return from massage duty and sexual intercourse sessions in California constitutes sexual assault in the 4 degree and that happened right here in Arkansas. Jane Doe 1 told you that she had very little to do at Tony Alamo’s residence in Fouke. Again, in her own words, “The only thing Tony Alamo used me for was sex.” This makes clear there is no other conclusion to draw than Tony Alamo intended to transport Jane Doe 1 back to Arkansas from California in 2005 in order to continue having sex with her, his wife.
Now let’s consider Tony Alamo’s purpose in having Jane Doe 2 transported across state lines in Counts 3 and 4 of the indictment. Jane Doe 2, in some of the most emotionally raw testimony in this trial, Jane Doe 2 told you she was sexually assaulted when she began living with Tony Alamo in his home shortly before her ninth birthday in **/**/****. Jane Doe 2 testified that the defendant began fondling her undeveloped breast area and her buttocks leading to digital penetration. After his sexual initiation of young Jane Doe 2, the defendant began full intercourse with her when he married her on **/**/****, three days short of her ninth birthday. Later that month the defendant authorized Jane Doe 2’s travel to Oklahoma to spend a week in her family’s home in Moffett, Oklahoma. Tony Alamo controlled when Jane Doe 2 could leave Fouke. He decided how long her trip back to Oklahoma would last. He dictated the day of her return to Fouke.
Although Tony Alamo himself did not personally drive the vehicle that transported Jane Doe 2 across state lines, he did decide when and how and with whom she should travel. He controlled the driver, he controlled the vehicle that she was transported in and when he had her brought back he began engaging in sexual intercourse with this child once again. This was rape. Rape was committed right here in Fouke, Arkansas when Tony Alamo brought Jane Doe 2 back to Arkansas from her visit to Moffett, Oklahoma.
Make no mistake that Tony Alamo’s purpose in having Jane Doe 2 brought back to Fouke, Arkansas in Count 3 was to resume sexual intercourse with a child whom he had degraded with both his illegal conduct and his disgusting comments to her.
In considering what purpose Tony Alamo had for Jane Doe 2’s transportation across state lines in 2000 when he had her brought back to Arkansas from Oklahoma, you can find no other explanation than Alamo, then 66-years of age, simply wanted to have sex with a child.
Count 4 charges Tony Alamo with transporting Jane Doe 2 while he was helped or aided and abetted by other church drivers. This trip was from Fouke, Arkansas to Moffett, Oklahoma and back again in 2001. You will recall that in the seven years Jane Doe 2 lived in the defendant’s home, he allowed her only two visits to her family. Jane Doe 2 was nine years old when she was allowed a second visit to her family’s home in Oklahoma. This required yet another interstate trip from Fouke, Arkansas to Moffett, Oklahoma and back to Fouke in 2001. Jane Doe 2 testified that when she returned to Arkansas she was required to have regular sexual intercourse with the defendant. This sexual activity is called rape. The rape of Jane Doe 2 occurred right here in the State of Arkansas in Tony Alamo’s private bedroom in Fouke. Jane Doe 2 wasn’t transported across state lines because she could contribute to the work of Tony Alamo’s organization. I ask you, what church business does a 9-year old conduct?
Count 5 charges the defendant with bringing Jane Doe 3 across state lines for sexual purposes in 1998. In this particular case the evidence is undisputed that the defendant’s intent and purpose for Jane Doe 3’s travel from Arkansas to Moffett, Oklahoma and back to Arkansas was for sexual purposes. You will recall that Tony Alamo instructed church drivers to take 14-year old Jane Doe 3 from his home in Fouke to her mother’s home in Moffett, Oklahoma. The defendant had told Jane Doe 3 that she must go to her mother’s house in Moffett, Oklahoma to telephone her father. Jane Doe 3’s father had become suspicious that his daughter was no longer living under his wife’s room. Jane Doe 3’s father had heard Jane Doe 3 might be living under Tony Alamo’s roof in Fouke. The defendant concocted a plan for Jane Doe 3 to call her father who was living in Nashville, Tennessee and to place that call from the mother’s home in Moffett, Oklahoma so it would be apparent that Jane Doe 3 was living with her mother in Oklahoma. Jane Doe 3 was instructed by the defendant to calm her father’s growing concerns that Jane Doe 3 had been taken as Tony’s wife. In July of 1998, Tony Alamo instructed a church driver to take Jane Doe 3 to Moffett, Oklahoma where she could place a pretextual telephone call to her father. Tony Alamo had told Jane Doe 3 he could not consummate the marriage until she made that telephone call to tell her father she was not a wife.
Jane Doe 3 testified that Tony Alamo instructed her that the call to her father must indeed come from her mother’s home in Oklahoma. Jane Doe 3 testified that before she left Mr. Alamo’s home in Fouke, Arkansas he told her he would not have full intercourse with her until she returned from calling her dad, in case she “got checked” in Fort Smith or Moffett. After Jane Doe 3 placed that telephone call to her dad in which she lied to her father at Tony Alamo’s direction, Jane Doe 3 was driven by church members back to Fouke, Arkansas. Jane Doe 3 was driven back at Mr. Alamo’s direction. On the day of her return to Fouke, Arkansas from Oklahoma, Jane Doe 3 was brutally sexually assaulted by the defendant. The exact same day that he had her brought across state lines he had sexual intercourse with her. The sexual activity happened right here in Arkansas in Fouke. This sexual activity with Jane Doe 3 in 1998 constitutes carnal abuse in the third degree.
In Count 5, there can be no other purpose for Jane Doe 3’s interstate travel other than for Tony Alamo to have her returned to his home in Fouke to have sex with her. She was taken across state lines and brought back to Arkansas for him to consummate his marriage. That marriage was consummated on the exact day of her return.
In Count 6 you will notice that Jane Doe 3 was listed as an office worker in Exhibit 261, which is the defendant’s travel request to Officer Mooney that sought permission for Mr. Alamo to leave Arkansas and travel to Nashville, Tennessee in 1999. Now Mr. Alamo wants his probation officer to believe that Jane Doe 3 is an office worker and that’s why he is taking her across state lines to Nashville, Tennessee. Jane Doe 3 was no office worker. She was a baby sitter and she was a housekeeper. Even Sharon Alamo, Mr. Alamo’s devoted wife, admitted Jane Doe 3 had no office duties. Once back in Arkansas after the trip to Nashville, Tennessee that is charged in Count 6, Tony Alamo resumed having sexual intercourse with Jane Doe 3. That occurred in his very own bedroom located here in the State of Arkansas in Fouke. This criminal conduct that was here in Arkansas constitutes carnal abuse in the third degree.
Count 7 involves Jane Doe 4’s intended trip to California at Tony Alamo’s direction and request, and that was in March or April of 1994. Now we all know that that trip was called off and aborted because Mr. Alamo received word that he was no longer needed in California for his legal proceedings.
Jane Doe 4 was just 15-years old and Mr. Alamo’s purpose and intent for himself going to California was for legal reasons. Jane Doe 4 was not trained as a paralegal. She was not trained as a secretary. The interstate trip that began in Fort Smith, Arkansas when they were living at the house on Meadow Lane began and ended right here in Arkansas.
Now you may ask, what purpose did Tony Alamo have in transporting Jane Doe 4 from Fort Smith to Albuquerque and back. Well, he simply wanted Jane Doe 4 returned to live under his room on Meadow Lane so he could continue the sexual relations with her that he had initiated just three days after his marriage to Jane Doe 4 in February of 1994.
This sexual activity that resumed when the defendant and Jane Doe 4 came back to Fort Smith, Arkansas, on the trip that we call the aborted trip to California, is carnal abuse in the third degree. For you see, in that year, sexual intercourse between a 60-year old man and a 15-year old girl constituted carnal abuse in the third degree. There is no doubt that Tony Alamo’s purpose in transporting 15-year old Jane Doe 4 out of Arkansas and back to Arkansas, was in order to continue having sex with her.
There may be some suggestion that Jane Doe 4 was a valued employee who worked to assist in the business of the church organization, but this does not make sense. Look at the year that the defendant took Jane Doe 4 across state lines.
When the defendant transported Jane Doe 4 in interstate commerce three separate times in 1994, she was a 15-year old girl whose only job had been wrapping candy. When she was plucked from her parents’ home by the defendant in February of 1994, she was not a skilled office worker. She was brought into the defendant’s home to become his sexual companion. The defendant’s purpose in transporting Jane Doe 4 in Count 7, 8 and 9 of the indictment was merely to provide sexual relations with his most recent conquest.
Now Count 8 charges the defendant’s trip with Jane Doe 4 from Arkansas to West Virginia and their return to Meadow Lane in Fort Smith. Jane Doe 4 testified it was not her scheduled night to have sex with the defendant during this trip from Arkansas to West Virginia, but it was her time to have intercourse with him upon their return to Arkansas. The sexual intercourse that occurred when the defendant brought Jane Doe 4 back to Arkansas from West Virginia constitutes carnal abuse in the third degree. This statute makes it a crime for a 15-year old female to have sexual intercourse with a 60-year old male. That sexual intercourse occurred in the State of Arkansas right after the defendant transported Jane Doe 4 back from West Virginia.
Now the defendant has suggested – the defense witnesses have suggested that the defendant and his entourage never returned to Fort Smith, Arkansas from West Virginia. Defense witnesses such as Sharon Alamo and Sandford White claim Tony Alamo and Jane Doe 4 traveled straight to Memphis from West Virginia and never returned to Fort Smith.
Why would you believe Sharon Alamo and Sandford White about the itinerary of this trip? How can you believe Sharon Alamo, a woman whose credibility is seriously in question?
Sharon Alamo is a woman whose connection with reality is so tenuous that she turned a blind eye to what was going on under her very own roof.
Sharon Alamo looked the other way when she saw wedding rings on the left fingers of girls in her home as young as nine.
And why would you believe Sandford White, whose dedication and loyalty to the defendant helped him close his eyes to the predatory conduct of his pastor?
Jane Doe 4 has demonstrated that her memory is remarkably keen. She testified that the defendant returned in the motor home with her and the other young wives to Fort Smith, Arkansas from West Virginia and that once back in the State of Arkansas their sexual activity constituted sexual intercourse. This is carnal abuse in the third degree.
I submit to you that Jane Doe 4’s memory and credibility exceeds that of his zealously loyal wife, Sharon Alamo and his blindly devoted follower, Sandford White.
Count 9 charges the transportation of Jane Doe 4 to Memphis, Tennessee from Fort Smith, Arkansas for the purpose of keeping Jane Doe 4 in an apartment nearby the defendant while he underwent his legal proceedings. Jane Doe 4 testified that Tony Alamo transported her and some of the other wives in the motor home to live in Memphis while the defendant was there for his legal business. Once in Memphis, Jane Doe 4 testified she had little to do with her day other than to wait around the apartment for Tony Alamo’s return each day. She testified he engaged in sexual relations with her at the residence in Memphis. The purpose of Jane Doe 4 being taken to Memphis was to be Tony Alamo’s sexual companion, not to be his secretary. Again, please keep in mind that Jane Doe 4 accompanied Tony Alamo to Memphis within four months of being taken as a wife, which was a time in Jane Doe 4’s young life in which she had no training as an office worker. The purpose of Jane Doe 4 traveling from Fort Smith, Arkansas to Memphis is clear, but you may have a question in your minds, how can the sexual conduct that occurred in Memphis, Tennessee violate an Arkansas state sexual assault statute?
This is very important.
The charges in this case reflect a continuing course of illegal conduct. As Judge Barnes has instructed you, a federal crime that is begun in one district and completed in another district, or as here, committed in more than one state, may be prosecuted in any judicial district from, through or into which the underage girl was moved. It is for this reason that the illegal sexual intercourse that occurred between Jane Doe 4 and the defendant in Memphis, Tennessee can be charged under Arkansas law. It may be suggested to you that the illegal sex acts charged in Count 9 must occur on Arkansas soil in order for you to convict on Count 9, but this is not a correct suggestion.
According to the Continuing Course of Conduct Doctrine and the Jury Instruction from the court on this issue, it is proper for the illegal sexual activity that occurred in Tennessee to be charged by reference to the Arkansas State Statute prohibiting carnal abuse in the third degree as it pertains to Jane Doe 4 in Count 9. Therefore, there is no technical defense to Count 9.
Finally, let us consider the proof of Tony Alamo’s purpose in transporting Jane Doe 5 to California and back to Arkansas in 2005, as charged in Count 10.
Southwest Airlines demonstrate Jane Doe 5 was flown to California at Tony Alamo’s instruction. Her travel was paid for with church funds in July 2005. Jane Doe 5 who was 16-years old in 2005 testified she had a sexual relationship with the defendant before she left Arkansas for the California trip. She testified that while in California in 2005, she had sexual intercourse with the defendant at his private bungalow in Saugus, California. Jane Doe 5 testified when she was returned to Fouke at the defendant’s direction, before her 17th birthday in September 2005, the defendant began his sexual contact with her once again. He was having sexual intercourse with her. The sexual intercourse that took place between Tony Alamo and Jane Doe 5 when she was 16 years old, both here in Arkansas before the trip, while in California during the trip, and once back in Arkansas after the trip constitutes sexual assault in the first degree. This is because the defendant, Tony Alamo, was in a position of trust or authority or supervision over Jane Doe 5 when he was having sexual intercourse with her when she was 16-years old.
When you examine the defendant’s purpose in flying Jane Doe 5 to California and returning her back to Arkansas in 2005, the defendant [sic] shows that the defendant simply required her as sexual companion. There was no other association with Jane Doe 5 than his interest in her as a sexual partner.
In examining a person’s intent, you can look at their conduct which is a good indicator of their intentions. And in this case, Tony Alamo’s intentions become clear through a pattern of conduct that help you see into his mind and determine what he had on his mind when he transported these young women to and from the Western District of Arkansas.
Here are some examples of the defendant’s pattern of conduct that illustrate his intent to transport underage females:
He traveled only with the females he called his wives, his sexual partners.
He never traveled with Sally Demoulin, his trusted office manager.
He did not put Linda Williams in his motor home or his bus, the woman whose name is on all the bank accounts.
He did not travel with Nikki Rodriguez, a trusted financial assistant.
Yet, I anticipate he will want you to believe that these girls were taken on interstate trips for church business. Yet keep in mind he never once had a church member who handled significant church matters travel with him.
Another factor is him increasingly seeking younger and younger women as his sexual companions. He also exchanged vows with these little girls in the privacy of his home proclaiming it was “of the Lord.” He gave them wedding rings to signify their commitment to him. He isolated them from their families and many other church members. He controlled them. He controlled their diets, their choice of clothing, their schedules, their activities, their education. He kept bars on their windows, security cameras turned on around the house and had guards pull watch and patrol the perimeter. And finally, he controlled their belief system about their eternal salvation.
Why did Tony Alamo need to control these young women?
Why did he need bars on his house?
Why did he need privacy fences around his personal bungalows in Saugus, when the other bungalows are not so protected?
Why did he need brothers in the organization to pull watch to patrol the property?
Why did he have rules preventing access of the young girls to telephones?
Why did he limit their opportunity to have access to outsiders?
What did Tony Alamo need to keep so secret?
Well, the evidence in this case makes the answer to that perfectly clear. Tony Alamo wanted to keep his criminal sexual activity with minors a secret from the outside world. To keep these crimes hidden he created a fiction that the young girls in his home were church workers.
But what he did not count on was the courage of Jane Doe 2 to break free, run from her home, and find an FBI agent who would listen to her and who would not give up.
He did not count on Jane Doe 4, Jane Doe 3, Jane Doe 1, and Jane Doe 5 having the courage to come forward, going against everything they had been taught and the ways that they had been raised, even at the risk of losing contact with their own family members to tell authorities what had happened to them behind Tony Alamo’s bedroom doors.
Tony Alamo, your crimes have been exposed in this courtroom.
MR. ERVIN: Your Honor, that’s improper to address the defendant.
THE COURT: What?
MR. ERVIN: It’s improper for the prosecutor to address the defendant in front of the jury.
THE COURT: It’s argument. Proceed.
MS. JENNER: Members of the jury, it is now your opportunity to consider all the evidence in this case and return a verdict of guilty on all ten counts of the indictment so that Tony Alamo can finally finally, finally be held accountable for the laws that he has broken and the lives of so many that he has destroyed.
Society will not and cannot tolerate a sexual predator of this magnitude. It has been said that if we don’t stand up for children we don’t stand for much. Your verdict of guilty will stand for the justice that these victims deserve.
Thank you.
For further information: Alamo lawyer: Sex with minors “incidental” to his purpose for traveling across state lines