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2/12/12 – TG: Parents respond to lawsuit. Mothers, fathers say they shouldn’t be included with Alamo Ministries defendants against action filed by former wives of jailed leader ***COMMENTS***

Texarkana Gazette
February 12, 2012
By: Lynn LaRowe – Texarkana Gazette

Parents respond to lawsuit
Mothers, fathers say they shouldn’t be included with Alamo Ministries defendants against action filed by former wives of jailed leader

Several Tony Alamo Christian Ministries members named as defendants in a civil lawsuit seeking damages for former Alamo wives filed responses last week.

Texarkana attorney David Carter filed the suit in August 2010 on behalf of former Alamo wives Desiree Kolbek, Summer Hagan, Jeanne Orlando, Jamie Rodriguez and Amy Eddy.

Also named as plaintiff is Nikki Farr, a former member who escaped from Alamo’s house when she was a teen.

Pebbles Rodriguez, a former Alamo wife who left the ministry in the months after Alamo was sentenced to 175 years in federal prison, was added as a plaintiff after the suit was first filed in August 2010.

The defendants include ministry-run businesses, several high-ranking ministry members and Robert Gilmore, the owner of a security company that once provided guards to the ministry.

Some of the defendants have filed suit to include the parents of the plaintiffs as third-party defendants, claiming that if the case goes their way, the parents should bear some of the blame for the physical, sexual and spiritual abuses suffered by the plaintiffs as children in Alamo Ministries.

Last week, Desiree Kolbek’s mother, Jennifer Kolbek; Summer Hagan’s father, Dennis Hagan; and Eddy’s mother, Sue Davis, filed brief responses denying any wrongdoing.

Dennis Hagan’s response consists of a Feb. 2 letter from a California doctor with a handwritten note by Dennis Hagan at the bottom of the page. The doctor’s letter states Hagan has suffered a stroke and is not capable of traveling or answering questions for a deposition.

Hagan’s handwritten remarks call the allegations against him false.

“I’m just a dropout carpenter, and I had a hard time understanding this kind of stuff even before I had a stroke. The bottom line is these allegations are preposterous,” Hagan wrote.

Jennifer Kolbek’s response is the lengthiest, though only a single page. She denies any wrongdoing and describes her daughter in unflattering terms, stating that Desiree’s testimony at Alamo’s trial resulted from coercion by the FBI.

“They are made-up stories,” Jennifer Kolbek’s response states.

Sue Davis’ response consists of a single, handwritten paragraph denying wrongdoing.

The suit was scheduled for trial in May. However, delays in the taking of depositions of witnesses and the complex nature of the litigation led the parties to recently file a joint motion asking U.S. District Judge Susan Hickey for more time.

Mentioned in the motion is Alamo’s recent illness and hospitalization while in prison in Terre Haute, Ind.,

Alamo, 77, was found guilty in July 2009 of all 10 counts in a federal indictment accusing him of bringing five child brides across state lines for sex.

Alamo, whose given name is Bernie Lazar Hoffman, was sentenced to the maximum punishment later that year.

Last year, Carter successfully argued for and won a $66 million judgment on behalf of two men who suffered abuses as children in the ministry.

The award is the largest personal injury judgment in Arkansas history and among the largest awarded in the United States last year.

In: 2012

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  1. Connie Says:

    I dont usually respond anymore to this subject of alamo as i am done with it. But I have to say that the parents are most definitely responsible for contributing to the destruction of their daughters.. One in particular is Jennifer kolbek who in my opinion is the worst of them.. She is a most capable liar who from a certain point in time sold out her own conscience to tony alamo believing the man is highly ordained from God. She betrayed the sacred trust of her child and gave her child to a man who defiled her mind body and soul. Jenifer makes me want to wretch.

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