12/15/2013 – TG: Six Alamo properties set for auction
Texarkana Gazette
December, 15, 2013
By: Lynn LaRowe – Texarkana Gazette
Six Alamo properties set for auction
Six Fort Smith, Ark., properties owned by imprisoned evangelist Tony Alamo are scheduled for auction by federal marshals next month.
An order inked Friday in a federal civil suit involving two men raised in Alamo Ministries authorizes the sale of the real estate, which includes the group’s Fort Smith church building. Spencer Ondrisek and Seth Calagna are each owed $15 million in damages from Alamo in a suit filed by Texarkana lawyer David Carter.
Alamo, 79, was found guilty by a jury in 2011 of conspiracy, battery and outrage. Alamo, who is serving a 175-year sentence in federal prison for sex crimes involving five women he wed as children, has paid nothing toward the multimillion judgment owed Ondrisek and Calagna. The men were beaten, starved, forced to labor unpaid and denied education as children raised in Alamo Ministries.
Carter and Irving, Texas, lawyer Neil Smith have successfully argued that properties associated with the polygamous pastor’s group should be sold to help partially satisfy Alamo’s debt in the civil case concerning Ondrisek and Calagna.
An order signed by a U.S. marshal was docketed Friday, giving notice of a public sale. The highest bidders can walk away with titles to any of the six Fort Smith properties at a sale on the steps of the Sebastian County Courthouse on Jan. 22, the order states. The order stems from rulings by U.S. Magistrate Judge Barry Bryant that the properties, though held in the names of Alamo loyalists and not Alamo himself, are actually maintained for Alamo’s benefit and profit.
The properties being sold include the Fort Smith Alamo Ministries church, gym, warehouse, restaurant, restaurant parking lot and a house.
Other properties in Fort Smith and Fouke, Ark., are the subject of additional court action in the case, which is likely to result in a similar auction later next year. Carter and Irving are seeking Bryant’s blessing to auction off additional properties including the ministry’s Fouke church building, the house where Alamo repeatedly raped and sexually assaulted women and girls, a gym in Fouke where Alamo directed public beatings of children and adults, a residence known as the “House of Scorn”—used as a semi-prison for girls and women when out of grace with Alamo—and other real estate.
Trial in a civil case Carter and Irving filed on behalf of women raised and abused in Alamo’s group is scheduled to begin next month.