Tony Alamo News

11/03/13 – TG: Lawyers ordered to show how Alamo is paying for legal fees ***COMMENTS***

Texarkana Gazette
November 3, 2013
By: Lynn LaRowe – Texarkana Gazette

Lawyers ordered to show how Alamo is paying for legal fees

Imprisoned evangelist Tony Alamo’s lawyers aren’t taking seriously a federal judge’s order to turn over information about how Alamo and his wife are paying legal fees, according to a motion filed Monday.

Texarkana lawyer David Carter and Irving, Texas, lawyer Neil Smith filed a motion earlier this month asking U.S. Magistrate Judge Barry Bryant to compel Tony Alamo and wife Sharon Alamo to answer questions about how they’re paying their lawyers. The motion is filed in a civil case involving two men raised in the controversial group who are each owed a $15 million judgment by Alamo.

A jury found Alamo guilty of conspiracy, battery and outrage in his conduct involving Spencer Ondrisek and Seth Calagna. To date, none of the $30 million Alamo owes has been paid.

Bryant granted Carter and Smith’s motion and ruled information about legal fees is not protected under attorney-client privilege in his earlier order.

“Rather than complying with this order, Alamo’s attorney (John Rogers of Clayton, Mo.) takes the position this order only gives plaintiffs ‘the right to attempt to extract this information from Tony and Sharon.’ He (Rogers) states that ‘it is safe to assume that a deposition of Tony is unlikely to result in your obtaining this information.’ But, we can ‘fly to Arizona and try,’” Smith and Carter’s motion states.

Rogers did not return a call from the Gazette Thursday.

The motion argues that Rogers has the information the court has ruled is not protected by privilege.

Documentation, in the form of an email between Tony and Sharon Alamo, attached to the motion indicates Rogers was paid $1 million to represent Tony Alamo and that a previous lawyer who represented Tony Alamo was paid more than $600,000.

“Plaintiffs have requested this information from his (Tony Alamo’s) attorneys only to be told that it will not be provided without an explicit court order,” the motion states.

The motion refers to case law that states any documents a client can access from their lawyer are within the client’s control.

“In Mr. Alamo’s case, such documents will include financial transaction receipts showing the source of payment and fee arrangements between defendant Alamo and his attorney,” the motion states. “Alamo’s attorneys indicate that the witness is unlikely to comply with the court order.”

The motion asks Bryant to order that financial documents in the Alamos’ lawyers’ possession be turned over.

In their earlier filing, Smith and Carter argue that figuring out where the Alamos are getting such large sums is necessary in their quest to get the $30 million judgment owed to Ondrisek and Calagna paid.

Smith and Carter are working to garner final court permission to sell off a bevy of Alamo Ministries-associated properties in Fort Smith and Fouke, Ark., to partially satisfy the large judgment. Smith and Carter successfully argued in previous hearings that the properties, the titles to which are regularly shifted from Alamo loyalist to Alamo loyalist, are actually under the control of and held for the profit and benefit of Alamo himself.