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Tony Alamo’s Enforcer On The Run

Cops: Fugitive Beat Followers For Slip-Ups

While Tony Alamo might be in jail for transporting minors over state lines for sex, another dangerous member of his church is still on the run. Cops say John Kolbek helped keep the Alamo followers in line… by beating them into submission.

The Full Story Below:

The Alamo Empire

In the late 1960s, Tony Alamo and his wife Susan began the Tony and Susan Alamo Christian Ministries by recruiting the hippies and homeless off Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles, Calif. The group officially incorporated into the Tony and Susan Alamo Foundation on January 29, 1969.

Cops say Susan Alamo was the brains of the foundation and instructed Tony Alamo on how to act and what to say. The couple bought airtime and began spreading their message on the airwaves. Tony, a self-proclaimed singer and record promoter, performed religious songs live, while Susan preached the Bible.

While the group continued to gain followers, the Alamos gained power. However, their empire faltered when Susan was struck down with breast cancer. Ex-members say this was when Tony Alamo began to show a darker side.

He allegedly forced his followers to pray around his dead wife’s body all day and night, convinced she would rise from the dead. When her body decayed instead of resurrecting, ex-followers say Alamo told them Susan would return to him in the body of a younger woman.

In the early 90s, Alamo was sued by the IRS for back taxes, and became a fugitive for two years. After he was captured and served jail time, he returned to his church and took up old habits.

This is when cops say Alamo began to prey on young women in his church. In order to do this, he needed to control his followers. This is where John Kolbek entered the picture.
According to later testimony, Kolbek’s daughter was married to Alamo when she was only eight years-old.

The Enforcer

Ex-members say Kolbek got into Alamo’s good graces when he allowed his daughter to live with Alamo when she was six years-old. According to later testimony, the child was “married” to Alamo when she was only eight. After this precious gift, Kolbek became Alamo’s right-hand man.

Alamo allegedly became extremely controlling in every aspect of his follower’s lives. They had to submit their phone records to him, and they could not purchase clothing, food, or any other item without his approval. Ex-followers said they could not watch television without Alamo’s consent. In exchange, Alamo gave his followers salvation.

According to ex-followers, church members believed that God was actually speaking through Alamo. Alamo preached fire and brimstone, saying that the end was coming and that he would bring those who followed him into heaven. He threatened his churchgoers, saying those who left the church would become insane or homosexual, and would burn in hell when they died. This type of fear kept his flock from straying.

If anyone were to question Alamo, they would be summoned to see Kolbek. Kolbek had what was known as the “board of education,” a three foot long, six inch wide wooden board used to beat followers into submission. Ex-members said it was unpredictable when they would get beaten. There are documented records of members being beaten for playing in the dirt, making a joke about Harry Potter, playing with squirt bottles, making repairs that didn’t hold, and other meaningless “crimes.”

But while the crimes were meaningless, the beatings weren’t.
Here’s Johnny!

Ex-members say the beatings would consist of person holding each limb, while the victim was held aloft. Kolbek would then take out the board and beat the person relentlessly, sometimes to the point of unconsiousness. In one case, Alamo was quoted as introducing John Kolbek by saying, “Here’s Johnny!” Another time, he was reported as saying, “Do you think I like doing this? I love doing this!”

These beatings were allegedly given to adults and children alike. In one case, ex-members say Alamo even ordered Kolbek to “beat the devil” out of a little girl with epilepsy.

When two teenage boys escaped the Alamo compound, they reported the alleged abuse to police. The beatings one boy sustained were so intense, there was still visible bruising from a beating six months prior.

Police raided the Alamo compound on September 21, 2008 and removed the girls living in Alamo’s house. They raided the area again in November, seized more children, and placed them into foster homes.

Alamo has since been convicted of transporting minors over state lines for sex, and sentenced to 175 years in prison. Kolbek was able to escape authorities, and is on the run. He might be traveling with this wife, Jennifer, and four children belonging to another member on the church. The children are under the guardianship of Jennifer Kolbek, and police are concerned for the children’s safety.

Wanted For:

* Second Degree Battery , Fort Smith , AR ; Oct 16, 2008

(Information valid as of December 11, 2009)

Child Labor Made These Jackets

Locking Away Evil – Finally

On this Thanksgiving weekend I want to tell you about a group of young people who are giving thanks for the first time in their lives. This year they are extremely thankful that their tormentor, the self proclaimed preacher Tony Alamo, has finally been brought to justice.

In U.S. District Court in Texarkana, Arkansas the 75 year old Alamo was recently sentenced to 175 years in prison on charges of engaging in sex with minor members of his so-called “church.” One of the five brides identified was just 8 years old. My sources, escapees of the church, tell me there were many more Alamo brides.

Alamo’s real name is Bernie LaZar Hoffman. He was a phony from the get-go. Back in the early 70’s he and his wife, Susan, dreamed up the “Alamo Christian Ministries” to rescue drugged out homeless people from the streets of Hollywood. They gave the unfortunates a cot to sleep on, food to eat, a rousing sermon and an odd job or two to perform as payback. City fathers donated money to show appreciation for the more tourist friendly streets. Those first Alamo followers settled in, coupled up and gave birth to a second generation. The poor kids never had a chance.

The Alamos had up to three dozen money making enterprises – from restaurants to hog farms –and their loyal disciples were their workforce. Instead of a salary the workers got meager living arrangements, irregular meals (many consisted of whatever food had been donated to the ministry) and all the preachin’ about Jesus the Alamos could muster.

The Alamos got rich. When Susan began to suffer from cancer they moved their headquarters to a hilltop near tiny Fouke, Arkansas – far away from the prying eyes of outsiders.

A big source of income was the uber-expensive, handmade rhinestone and sequined studded denim jackets the disciples churned out. In the day it seemed all of Hollywood was wearing one! Dolly Parton, Brooke Shields, Mr. T, among others, wore the flashy fashion statements and sales sky-rocketed.

In 1994, Alamo went to prison for failure to pay taxes on the jacket earnings. At the time of the trial there was evidence that children at the compound were being brutally beaten, held aloft by four burly church men while Alamo beat them bloody, “baseball style” with a wooden paddle. However, that testimony was never allowed at the tax trial. Once in prison Alamo still ruled his flock with an iron fist.

In a series of exclusive interviews with those born into the Alamo cult I’ve heard unforgettable horror stories.

The children were schooled but now realize, as adults, that on orders from Alamo their education was sorely lacking. If they asked an inappropriate question about the day’s lesson they were beaten. If they were tardy, laughed too loud or wore the wrong clothing they were beaten. After classes they were ordered into hours of mandatory prayer. One young man named Jared remembers after Susan died of cancer in 1982 all followers were ordered by “Papa Tony” to keep up a round-the-clock kneeling prayer circle for her “certain resurrection.” Alamo kept Susan’s corpse for 16 years until a court finally ordered him to return it to her family.

These Alamo captives now reveal it was them – the exhausted, terrorized children of the group who often worked until midnight laboriously turning out those denim jackets. A young mother named Becca tells me that growing up in the ministry brought no joy – ever. She worked in the communal kitchen cutting away the rotten parts of donated food. She fantasized about Papa Tony’s promise to get her a “jar of pickles for my birthday.” There was no real medical care, not even for one poor epileptic child. Jared remembers watching the girl beaten every time she had a seizure. Several other former Alamo Ministry children who wish to remain anonymous told me how underage girls were routinely married off to much older male church members. After Alamo got out of prison in 1998, they say, Papa Tony chose multiple underage brides for himself.

Finally in September 2008, at a roadside stop in Arizona, Alamo was arrested with 6 girls in his vehicle and charged with transporting them across state lines for sexual purposes.

I tell you this story because society needs to learn from it. Our justice system took way too long to stop this monster, knowing since the early 90’s that children were suffering at his hand. The doctrine of separation of church and state caused authorities to shy away.

We need to do better. While the second Alamo generation is now thankful he’s locked away authorities admit there are other religious based predators out there. No one wants to curtail freedom of religious practice but allowing charlatans to victimize the innocent and enslave people isn’t acceptable either.

CLICK HERE TO READ COMMENTS ON DIANEDIMOND.NET

Court upholds seizure of children
Judge: Environment at Alamo compound potentially dangerous

The Arkansas Court of Appeals affirmed Wednesday the decisions of Miller County circuit judges concerning the custody of girls removed from Tony Alamo’s house during a law enforcement raid.

“The evidence presented at the hearing overwhelmingly demonstrated that the environment at the compound in Fouke is potentially dangerous for the children of its members,” said an opinion inked by Chief Judge Larry Vaught concerning a girl assigned to Circuit Judge Joe Griffin. “A child may be adjudicated dependent-neglected even if she has not yet suffered abuse. To require (the girl) to suffer the same fate as those whose abuse and neglect were described at the hearing would be ‘tragic and cruel.’”

Alamo, a former evangelist, was sentenced last week to 175 years in federal prison for child sex abuse.

Judges Robert Gladwin and D.P. Marshall penned opinions affirming decisions by Griffin and Circuit Judge Jim Hudson for two other families.

The rulings concerned four of six girls taken into state care Sept. 20, 2008.

Vaught’s opinion denying Greg Seago’s appeal of his daughter’s removal includes the observations of a state psychologist immediately following the raid.

“She said that on the first day she noticed that (two girls) wore wedding-band type rings on the third fingers of their left hands; the next day, the rings were gone,” the opinion said of child sexual abuse expert Dr. Karen Worley of Arkansas Children’s Hospital. “Worley stated that, while the children said that they would follow government law, they truly believed church law, including such beliefs as polygamy and the marriage of girls once they reach puberty.”

Vaught noted that Seago married a 15-year-old when he was 35, failed to intervene when his children were beaten and “failed to protect that child against the risk of sexual abuse by … placing her in the residence of Tony Alamo, whom he knew to be a polygamist. The court also found that Seago had endorsed and facilitated the attempted illegal marriages of underage females including (his daughter) to adult males.”

In Gladwin’s decision affirming Griffin’s ruling regarding two of Brian Broderick’s daughters, the testimony of one of the girls is quoted.

She describes being held down on Alamo’s bed by four of his “wives” and beaten with a board by one of them while Alamo watched with “a smile on his face.”

The opinions also referred to the testimony of several young men who have left the church.

The “iron control” Alamo exercised over his flock and their children is evidenced by examples of children being moved away from their parents at Alamo’s whim, the opinions said.

Danny Ondrisek testified that his mother received a new mini-van and his father an expensive digital camera when his then 10-year-old sister moved into Alamo’s house. Alys Ondrisek remains an Alamo devotee and testified on his behalf at his criminal trial.

Danny Ondrisek’s testimony also alleged that Alamo put the “whole church on a week-long fast when he was eight or nine years old,” the opinion said. As punishment for answering an “outsider’s” questions, Danny Ondrisek was forced to live in a dirty warehouse in New Jersey where he labored unpaid for 12 hours daily.

The testimony of a teenage former member who was “grossed out” when 50-year-old Alfonso Reid asked to marry her, is also mentioned.

“She testified that, when they were tipped off about an upcoming raid, the younger girls who were Alamo’s wives were sent out of Alamo’s residence, and that she observed some pictures of his underage wives being removed from his belongings,” Seago’s opinion said.

When authorities searched Alamo’s bedroom in September 2008, they didn’t find Polaroid pictures of nude girls that some of the Jane Does who testified against Alamo at his criminal trial described.

In the Seago, Broderick and Reid opinions, the judges write that the men complain that the inclusion of housing and employment separate from the ministry as conditions for reunification are unconstitutional.

Because such objections were not made at the trial court level, the issue can’t be appealed, the opinions said.

“Whether or not we take it to the Arkansas Supreme Court or ask for a rehearing, those decisions haven’t been made. I need to discuss this with my clients,” said Houston attorney Clay Conrad, who filed the appeals on the parents’ behalves. “Do I think the opinions they wrote are vulnerable? Yes, I do.”

Florida attorney Phillip Kuhn said he believes the lack of an opinion on the religious freedom issue supports allegations made in a civil lawsuit he filed in federal court on behalf of the ministry, Seago and Bert Krantz, a member with six children in state custody.

The civil suit accuses the Arkansas Department of Human Services of using a child abuse investigation to disband the ministry and of acting in bad faith.

“I’m pleased that the appellate court saw the evidence the way I saw it,” Griffin said. “I felt that all the information provided to the court gave it a strong basis to enter the orders it did. I think the appellate ruling gives the circuit court solid direction on how it should proceed in the future if case goals and directives are not met. Of course, these cases are such that, if circumstances or situations change, then the courts’ future orders can change also.”

Court: State right to move children
Neglect deemed clear at Alamo’s

The state was right to remove children from the compound of evangelist Tony Alamo and declare that they had been neglected, the Arkansas Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday.

The court upheld Miller County Circuit Judges James Scott Hudson Jr. and Joe E. Griffin, who ruled in three cases involving three fathers who challenged the right of the Department of Human Services to take custody of their children.

The appeals court opinions revealed previously undisclosed information from the closed custody hearings.

For instance, victims testified that they had been forced to fast on just water and coffee and had been put on “diesel therapy,” which involved a forced ride with a ministry truck driver.

Chief Judge Larry D. Vaught cited circuit court findings of beatings, underage marriages, involuntary fasts, inadequate education and poor medical care for the children.

“The evidence overwhelmingly demonstrated that the environment at the compound in Fouke is potentially dangerous for the children of its members,” Vaught wrote.

Alamo was sentenced to 175 years in prison last week, three months after a jury convicted him on 10 counts of taking underage girls across state lines for sex, in violation of the federal Mann Act.

Five victims, now between ages 18 and 31, testified that Alamo had taken them as his “wives” at ages as young as 8 and sexually abused them at his house at the compound, about 15 miles south of Texarkana.

In the appeals cases decided Wednesday in Little Rock, the three fathers – Alphonso Reid, Greg Seago and Brian Broderick – denied any knowledge of a pattern of physical or sexual abuse or that anything illegal happened to their children.

The Bible condones fasting, argued Seago. And Broderick claimed that Alamo’s ministry and compound was “a great environment in which to raise children,” according to the opinions.

Seago claimed that the court’s order for him to move off church property and find alternative employment if he wished to be reunited with his daughter violated his First Amendment right to freedom of religion.

Vaught and Judges Robert J. Gladwin and D.P. Marshall Jr. ruled unanimously on all three cases. They dismissed the fathers’ arguments, saying that even if their children had not yet suffered abuse, the chances were good that they would if they returned to the compound.

“Given the juvenile code’s goal of preventing the abuse of children before it occurs,if at all possible, we have no hesitation in affirming the circuit court’s finding,” Gladwin wrote in the Broderick opinion.

Alamo founded the ministry with his wife, Susan Alamo, in Hollywood, Calif., in the late 1960s. The ministry later expanded to Arkansas and Nashville, Tenn., attracting hundreds of followers who worked in ministry-owned businesses, including one that designed and manufactured elaborate denim jackets worn by such celebrities as Dolly Parton and Mr. T. Susan Alamo died of cancer in 1982.

After former ministry members contacted the Arkansas State Police, an investigation began that culminated in a September 2008 raid on the Fouke compound.

Federal authorities said after Alamo’s sentencing that they will continue to work with state police and prosecutors to file charges against church members who were complicit in the victims’ abuses.

The Arkansas Department of Human Services, which has placed 36 ministry children in foster care, contends that the children are endangered by practices that include allowing underage marriages and punishing misbehavior with beatings.

At the appeals court, the cases are CA09-350, Alphonso Reid v. Arkansas Department of Human Services; CA09-244, Greg Seago v. Arkansas Department of Human Services; and CA09-351, Brian Broderick v. Arkansas Department of Human Services.

Appeals court upholds seizure of Alamo children

Arkansas officials properly seized children living at the Tony Alamo Christian Ministries who faced “a clear picture of danger” from beatings and forced fasts ordered by the evangelist, a state appeals court ruled Wednesday.

Arkansas Court of Appeals judges issued three opinions dealing with children taken by welfare officials after a September 2008 raid at Alamo’s compound in Fouke. The rulings offered new details from closed child custody hearings about Alamo ministries, outlining how children suffered burst blood vessel and passed out after “spankings” over perceived slights to the 75-year-old preacher.

“My childhood was robbed from me. I can’t ever speak to my mother. My children think that I don’t love them,” according to testimony quoted in the opinions from one woman forced to marry a 35-year-old man when she was 15. “I still think that I have this thing in the back of my mind if I testify to show what my mind set was that somehow I am going to be cursed by God, because God is going to cause me to be sick.

“Because you know, Tony says he is a man of God, and all he brings him and he repairs lives and heals people’s hearts, but all he’s done is destroy mine.”

Officials with the Arkansas Department of Human Services have seized about three dozen children since the raid by the FBI and Arkansas State Police. Three men with children taken by the state appealed rulings by Miller County Circuit judges Joe E. Griffin and James Scott Hudson Jr. that allowed the children to remain in protective custody.

During closed-door custody hearings, a variety of witnesses testified about life inside the compound, the opinions show. The witnesses said Alamo followers could talk to “outsiders” only when sharing Alamo’s beliefs. Followers faced beatings and punitive coffee-and-water fasts for breaking church rules, while teens were forced into “diesel therapy” _ riding along with semi-trucks associated with the ministry’s private businesses.

“The evidence presented at the hearing overwhelmingly demonstrated that the environment at the compound in Fouke is potentially dangerous for the children of its members,” Chief Judge Larry D. Vaught wrote in one opinion. “Punishment may be directed at a child with the parents’ permission; other times, the parents learn of it later. The evidence demonstrated that even when the parents witnessed beatings, they did nothing.”

Some testified that Alamo began sexual relationships with the young daughters of followers, while the preacher ordered others that reached puberty to marry men at times more than twice their age. Witnesses at Alamo’s federal trial for taking young girls across state lines for sex say he took child “brides” as young as 8.

Alamo himself testified at the custody hearings. An opinion issued Wednesday by Judge Robert J. Gladwin shows that Alamo told the court he believed polygamy is acceptable and that girls can be married after they reach puberty, though he denied permitting practicing those beliefs.

Appeals court judges were unmoved by Alamo’s explanation.

“The evidence introduced at this hearing presented a clear picture of the danger to children in the ministry compound at Fouke,” Gladwin wrote. He added: “Given the juvenile code’s goal of preventing the abuse of children before it occurs, if at all possible, we have no hesitation in affirming the circuit court’s finding that these were children dependent-neglected.”

Julie Munsell, a Department of Human Services spokeswoman, did not immediately return a call for comment Wednesday.

U.S. District Judge Harry F. Barnes sentenced Alamo to 175 years in prison last week after a jury convicted the preacher on a 10-count federal indictment. Alamo’s defense team has appealed the sentence.

Appeals court upholds removal of children from Alamo compound

State human services officials were justified in removing children living at the Tony Alamo Christian Ministries last year for their own protection, the state Court of Appeals ruled today.

In three separate opinions, the court concluded there was enough evidence to support the state Department of Human Services’ decision to remove the children following a September 2008 raid on the Alamo compound in Fouke.

Among other things, the rulings said the children faced danger of beatings and forced fasts ordered by the 75-year-old evangelist convicted earlier this year of transporting underage girls across state lines for sex and sentenced this month to 175 years in prison.

Since the raid by state police and the FBI, DHS has seized about three dozen children. Three men with children taken by the state appealed rulings by Miller County Circuit judges Joe E. Griffin and James Scott Hudson Jr. that allowed the children to remain in protective custody.

In one of the appeals court rulings today, Judge Robert J. Gladwin wrote that the evidence “presented a clear picture of the danger to children in the ministry compound at Fouke.”

“Given the juvenile code’s goal of preventing the abuse of children before it occurs, if at all possible, we have no hesitation in affirming the circuit court’s finding that these were children dependent-neglected,” Gladwin wrote.

In a separate opinion, Chief Judge Larry Vaught wrote that the “evidence … overwhelmingly demonstrated that the environment at the compound in Fouke is potentially dangerous for the children of its members.”

Though the custody hearings were closed, today’s appeals court rulings offered new details about the lives of children at Alamo ministries, outlining how children suffered burst blood vessel and passed out after “spankings” over perceived slights to the 75-year-old preacher.

Some testified that Alamo began sexual relationships with the young daughters of followers and ordered others that reached puberty to marry men at times more than twice their age. Witnesses at Alamo’s federal trial testified he took child “brides” as young as 8.

“My childhood was robbed from me. I can’t ever speak to my mother. My children think that I don’t love them,” according to testimony quoted in the opinions from one woman forced to marry a 35-year-old man when she was 15. “I still think that I have this thing in the back of my mind if I testify to show what my mindset was that somehow I am going to be cursed by God, because God is going to cause me to be sick.

“Because you know, Tony says he is a man of God, and all he brings him and he repairs lives and heals people’s hearts, but all he’s done is destroy mine.”

Alamo testified at the custody hearings. Gladwin’s opinion today says the preacher told the court he believed polygamy is acceptable and that girls can be married after they reach puberty, though he denied permitting practicing those beliefs.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

‘Little girl’ determined not to be Alamo ‘wife’

‘I didn’t know what freedom was until I left Tony’s house’

When Nikki Farr ran away from Tony Alamo’s house in Fouke, Ark., she was just 15 and was the first to escape on her own steam.

“I knew when Tony got back I was really going to get it,” Farr said, referring to one day about 11 years ago when she’d been caught a second time making an unauthorized phone call. “There was no way I was going to get beat again. It was fight or flight, and there was no fighting.”

Farr, now 26, has no doubt she was being groomed to become a wife.

After being sent to visit Alamo in federal prison during a stint he did for tax evasion from 1994 to 1998, Farr said she was directed to move in with the “sisters in the house,” a term loyalists use to describe Alamo’s plural spouses.

“I fled for hours,” Farr said of her impromptu trek through the unfamiliar woods she traversed in Fouke. “I crossed barbed-wire fences and two little rivers … I knew I could never go back but I’d decided that if this was heaven, I’d rather have hell.”

Farr said she could never “wrap my head around” the idea of becoming an Alamo bride even though many considered it “their way into heaven.”

“I had two ulcers by age 14,” Farr said. “I fit the profile. I looked like a little girl.”

Farr was not listed in Tony Alamo’s indictment but testified against him at trial. She said July 24, 2009, was the “happiest day” of her life.

“To sit there next to (the Jane Does) and know that I was on the right side,” Farr said. “I finally belonged.”

Farr wasn’t given the opportunity to give victim impact testimony at Alamo’s sentencing because she wasn’t named in his indictment.

“I would have said, not to him but for all that could hear, ‘I wonder who I would have been,’” Farr considered. “I don’t want to use the word robbed … but I feel I could have made such a difference had I been able to find out who I was and what I was good at.

“I didn’t get to appreciate what it was to be an American,” she said. “I was born in the United States of America but I didn’t know what freedom was until I left Tony’s house.”

Farr said she spent her years in Alamo’s house getting in trouble so she wouldn’t be worthy of an Alamo-led wedding ceremony in his bedroom that ended with a forced consummation. The first time she’d been caught using a phone without Alamo’s blessing, she said he shoved her and banged her head into a bookcase. Other floggings she’d suffered were much worse, Farr said.

Farr said she watched video feed in the house from an outside camera until she saw Alamo approaching, knowing one of his wives was about to “report” her for her second phone infraction. That’s when she slipped through a window and into the unknown.

“I had to go. I was thinking, ‘Maybe I’ll die. Maybe I’ll go to hell. Where do I go? I go to the woods,’” Farr said.

After about five hours of running, Farr said, she came upon a house.

“That’s a long story in itself,” she said.

As she recalled the day she began the end of her life in Alamo Ministries, Farr’s breathing increased, her body stiffened and her face flushed.

“A family helped me. I got from Texarkana to L.A. on a Greyhound bus,” she said. “I was convinced that if Tony found out I was still in Fouke he would’ve gotten me back. He had them out searching for me.”

Farr described the days between her escape and debarkation in Los Angeles as “surreal.”

“There was some old guy with a bottle of whiskey on the bus and he kept trying to offer me some,” Farr said. “We passed through Indian towns and weird places.”

On the trip, Farr listened to the “Titanic” movie soundtrack on a Walkman she’d quickly stashed in a leather backpack that carried a change of underwear and a few other personal items.

“It was the first secular music I’d ever heard,” Farr said. “I’d snuck it in.”

Farr, born and raised in the “cult,” had never been alone in the outside world.

“You’re leery of men. You’ve never been allowed to be around them before,” she said. “All the people you should be able to go to for help, police, you are taught to fear. They’re all out to get you.”

Farr’s journey to L.A., melodied by “beautiful music,” ended in a bus station on the east side of the city. Farr, attractive and petite, said she waited for “a few hours” before her mother arrived and took her to ministry property in California.

“She had a couple of banana boxes that had ‘Nikki’s stuff’ written on them,” Farr said.

She was told Alamo was kicking her out of the group and that she could not stay with her mother.

“I was told I could go to juvenile detention or find somewhere to go,” Farr said. “I was given $50.”

Farr said her family had once lived in Chicago, so she chose that as her destination. The isolated life she’d lived left her with little understanding of society and a fear of those among whom she now existed.

“At 15, I had to support myself. I was working two jobs, going to school four hours a day, sleeping two hours a night, it was crazy,” she recalled.

While in Alamo’s house Farr said she had become accustomed to laboring long hours with little sleep and virtually no opportunities for relaxation or entertainment.

“I had to be 30 at 15, but in so many ways I was like a little child,” Farr said.

Farr remembered one day when she was 17, working for a communications business in Chicago, as she stood outside on a smoke break.

“I don’t smoke anymore, but I did then,” she said.

Down the street, Farr said, she could hear a school bell ring and watched as teenaged children walked from the campus with their backpacks and friends.

“Why couldn’t that be me?” she asked. “The older I get the more I realize how much had been taken away from me. I look back and think, ‘Holy crap.’”

Farr said others in Chicago considered her wise beyond her years because of her self-sufficiency. But Farr said she knew she didn’t have a basic understanding of the culture in which she now functioned.

“When I first got out, I loved ’80s music,” Farr said of her taste in 1999. “I didn’t know I was behind.”

When her peers spoke of the television shows and historical events—which her cohorts used as life markers—Farr was at a loss.

“I’d try to cover it up,” she said. “Now, I realize how stupid some of the stuff I said must’ve sounded.”

Farr said she still lives with a hyper-vigilance that makes her appear “jumpy.” She inhaled deeply as she explained how she still feels at times like she’s in water that reaches just below her nose. Her dream is to help children at risk of becoming victims of abuse.

“If you can save them before something happens, then you’ve truly saved them,” Farr said.

An open letter from Christhiaon Coie [Susan Alamo’s daughter]

I wanted to thank Tony Alamo News for bringing the truth about the Tony Alamo cult to all of us.

I want to thank Federal Prosecutor Kyra Jenner for having the guts to finally bring justice to this coward who has hidden behind a Bible for decades. 

She introduced truth and justice where no one else (other then IRS) had the chutzpa to tread. 

Had she and Special Agent Harris and Bishop not brought this evidence from this den of iniquity Tony would still be raping, beating, and starving these victims. 

None of these people will ever truly understand what they have put a stop to.





To the victims, especially the ones who took the stand, I do know how hard it is to take the stand and relive being violated. 

You told the truth and you guaranteed that he will never put his filthy hands on anyone again. 

You are my heroes. 

To any member or relative who have treated you badly because YOU were brave, they should drop to their knees and beg you to forgive them.



To the people who remain controlled by Tony, take a moment and try to remember what shame is. 

Try to remember what right and wrong are. 

Try to remember what freedom was. 

Today is your first day of freedom. 

I would not attempt to tell you what God wants you to do. I can sure tell you what he doesn’t want you to do. 

He doesn’t want you to hurt or allow anyone to hurt. 



I wish I could tell you my mother [Susan Alamo] was mistaken, that she meant well, or that she started out with a good idea to help. 

I can’t. 

She was cruel, violent, power and money hungry. 

She was really smart and when she found her puppet (Tony) she used her weak kneed, starving for love and approval daughter to lie for her and bring in her first and second victims. 

I have spent almost 40 years of my life trying to stop this.

Please stop and think, you have a chance to show your families that you have a brain along with that soul. 

Call the local authorities and tell them where weapons, documents, etc are hidden. 

Don’t let Tony destroy anymore of your lives. 

Remember what the Bible says. 

When you know the truth the truth will set you free.



Woman: Alamo asked, ‘Think I’m a dirty old man?’

A former follower of evangelist Tony Alamo told federal jurors at his sex-crimes trial Monday that the preacher lashed out at her when she grimaced at the sight of a 9-year-old girl rubbing his thighs.

“Do you think I’m a dirty old man?” Alamo asked, according to the witness, whose daughter became one of his young brides at age 14.

Alamo faces a 10-count indictment accusing him of taking five girls across state lines for sex, including the 9-year-old. The woman testified that while she thought it odd that a young girl was touching Alamo on his thighs, she never thought that her children were in danger.

“I didn’t want to think anything bad about Tony. We were taught that everything Tony did was of the Lord,” said the woman, now 38 and living in Texas.

Alamo’s lawyers say prosecutors targeted him because they disagree with his religious beliefs. Alamo has said the girls were traveling to support the ministry’s work, and that the Vatican is ultimately behind the charges.

Under cross-examination, the witness who said she grimaced at what she saw said that, at the time, she didn’t know what to make of the touching and eventually didn’t do anything about it. She said she still questions herself about it.

“I’m just trying to figure out why a 29-year-old woman would be confused about what she saw,” said the woman, whose daughter testified earlier that she had sex with Alamo in California after flying there from Arkansas.

Jurors heard from all five alleged victims last week. In graphic testimony, they said that they traveled to California, Tennessee and West Virginia for sex with their pastor or responded to his call and returned to Arkansas from out of state and had sex with him. Each count in the indictment is punishable by 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

The 38-year-old woman also testified Monday that she served as a bookkeeper for one of Alamo’s trucking companies and that he had called her and others in 2000, concerned that the operation was making too much money and would have a major tax liability. She said Alamo directed that the books be altered to show that the company had given money to a group thatAlamo had set up as a charity.

“We basically had to juggle the books” to avoid taxes, the woman said.

Tax charges are not listed in the current indictment. Alamo served four years in prison on a tax evasion charge beginning in 1994.

While lawyers argued Monday over whether an FBI agent could say he worried about the safety of Alamo’s followers after a Sept. 20 raid on the Arkansas compound, Alamo blurted out a reference to the Branch Davidian religious compound in Texas that federal agents stormed in 1993. Leader David Koresh and dozens of followers died as the complex burned.

“After Waco, they are looking for safety from the FBI,” Alamo said from the defense table.

Earlier Monday, a woman whose sister had claimed to be another underage bride of Alamo misidentified the preacher from the witness stand. She pointed him out correctly when given a second chance.

The woman, 20, spoke slowly and often appeared confused. Prosecutors had summoned her to verify details that her 17-year-old sister gave Friday, including that Alamo said the Lord had told him to choose a wife from between the siblings. The 20-year-old woman, a former Alamo follower, told jurors that several people were present when the preacher picked her then-11-year-old sister as a “wife,” but the previous witness had said only three people were there.

Alamo’s defense team hammered on the difference.

The mother of the two witnesses told jurors she had no problem with the girls going to Alamo’s home, calling him “a holy man of God” who had been blessed by “the blood of the Lord.”

Prosecutors also summoned the sister of a woman who still lives in the compound. The woman, 19, said her sister moved into Alamo’s home at age 12 and later became one of his wives. She said she often heard Alamo refer to several woman as wives and saw them massaging Alamo’s thighs, giggling and whispering in his ears.

She also said she helped prepare Alamo’s tour bus for a November 2004 trip. The 17-year-old who testified Friday said she had sex with Alamo on the bus while she was underage.