Tony Alamo Claims They Are Out To Hurt His Foundation
Los Angeles Daily News
March 27, 1988
By: CARMEN RAMOS CHANDLER
ALAMO BLASTS MEN WHO PROMPTED RAID
Religious leader Tony Alamo said Saturday that the two Orange County fathers who had their sons removed from Alamo’s Saugus commune were out to hurt his foundation.
”Those boys are embezzlers and crooks, and my attorneys have proof of what I’m saying,” Alamo said in a telephone interview from New York.
On Thursday, an Orange County Superior Court judge granted brothers Robert Miller and Carey Miller temporary custody of their three sons, ages 4, 9 and 11, after the Los Angeles Sheriff Department’s fugitive detail took the boys in an early morning raid Thursday at the Tony and Susan Alamo Christian Foundation. A custody hearing will be held April 11.
The foundation, which is known for distributing anti-Catholic literature, was created by Alamo and his late wife, Susan, in the late 1960s. They spread the gospel to teen-agers, drug addicts and alcoholics roaming the streets of Hollywood.
The group was evicted from West Hollywood after a public nuisance conviction and settled on two sites about five miles apart in Saugus. The
commune quickly grew to several hundred people.
The foundation pulled out of Saugus in the 1970s and set up a new ministry in Arkansas. It returned to Saugus in 1985.
The Miller brothers said they left the group in Arkansas last September, fearing for their lives, after Alamo forced them to turn over their small trucking business to him.
The foundation declared the Miller brothers divorced from their wives, Susan Miller and Carol Ann Miller, and the women remarried Alamo aides.
Robert Miller said in an interview Friday that during the 16 years he had been with Alamo he had been “brainwashed” into believing that anyone outside the foundation was a devil.
He said he and his brother are fighting to gain permanent custody of their sons because they fear for the boys’ physical and emotional safety.
The Millers and their attorney could not be reached Saturday for reaction to Alamo’s comments.
Alamo called the Millers’ claims of being brainwashed “ridiculous.”
“I have tapes of them on T.V. programs where they have said they loved the (Alamo) church and that they were living in beautiful homes because of it,” he said.
Alamo said the Miller brothers never really had a trucking business, but used the foundation’s trucks to haul produce across Arkansas.
“They talked about 35 of the church’s members into joining them, convincing them that they were going to make money for their homes and feed their families, when all the time the boys (the Millers) were taking the money
from the (trucking business) and putting it in their own bank accounts across the state,” Alamo said.
He said the Millers fled Arkansas after foundation members started investigating their business.
Alamo denied that the Millers’ children were ever abused.
“That’s ridiculous,” he said. “People have complimented us on the loving atmosphere we raise our children in.”
Alamo said he did not know why the Millers would make such accusations.
“I believe they are going to face judgment from God,” he said. “In the meantime I am going to go after them with all my force, because when you attack my church you attack the house of the living God.”