New lawyer signals new strategy in Alamo case

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — California lawyer Danny Davis has wanted to separate jailed evangelist Tony Alamo from the abuse allegations that trail his ministry.

“There is a man and there is the myth,” Davis said. “He has become a myth in the character of this monstrous felony accusation.”

That’s what Davis told The Los Angeles Times in 1991 while representing Alamo in a child-abuse case that never went to trial. Now, almost 20 years later, the Beverly Hills lawyer apparently will defend the aging evangelist against federal charges that could leave him behind bars until his death.

Alamo’s choice of Davis means the evangelist likely wants to attack the credibility of witnesses who will claim the evangelist took young girls across the state lines for sex.

Davis is best known for his work as a defense lawyer in the McMartin Pre-School molestation trial, one of the nation’s longest-running and costliest criminal trials. Defending preschool worker Raymond Buckey, Davis focused on discounting the alleged victims’ bizarre accounts of animal mutilation, blood drinking and underground tunnels running through the day-care center. Buckey was twice acquitted after two long trials.

In Alamo’s case, Davis will have to contend with allegations that the preacher “married” two young girls and sexually molested them, on top of claims that he took pictures of the girls naked.

Davis did not return calls for comment Monday. The lawyer told the Texarkana Gazette last week that Alamo had “misgivings about the level of preparation” for the May 18 trial.

“My first observation is that in six months I don’t see that anything’s been done and this alarms me,” Davis told the newspaper. “I’ll be quickly up to my eyeballs in trying to prepare this case.”

Davis will take over the case from John Wesley Hall Jr., a Little Rock criminal defense lawyer who said he already laid much of the groundwork for such a defense. Hall said he and others in his law practice have visited Alamo in jail multiple times, conducted interviews with ministry members and gathered materials from them. He declined to say whether the ministry kept files on ex-members, saying he remained bound by attorney-client privilege.

“The essence of it is (the abuse) didn’t happen,” Hall said Monday. “These are people with an ax to grind against Tony Alamo Christian Ministries.”

Hall remains listed as Alamo’s lawyer in the federal docket. Interim U.S. Attorney Debbie Groom declined to comment about prosecutors’ preparations for trial.

In 1991, Davis defended the evangelist against felony child-abuse charges over an alleged 1988 beating of an 11-year-old boy at a ministry compound north of Los Angeles. Then, Jeremiah Justin Miller claimed Alamo directed the beating over a speakerphone after he asked a science question during a history class and wore a metal-studded leather scarf, designed by the preacher, without permission.

At a hearing Davis portrayed Miller as an unruly child whose memories had been exaggerated by coaching from his adopted father.

Five years later, prosecutors dropped the charges against Alamo after federal prosecutors sent him to prison over tax evasion charges. At the time, prosecutors said Alamo would have served only five months in prison in convicted in the child-abuse case, something not worth the expense and time of a difficult trial.

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.”

FATHER SAYS SEIZING BOYS WAS JUSTIFIED

Robert Miller said Friday that he and his brother had sheriff’s deputies remove their sons from a Saugus religious commune because they feared for their emotional and physical safety.

”We had to get them out of there. The Alamo is a crazy religious cult that brainwashes people into believing that everyone not in the group are devils,” said Miller in an interview.

A spokesman for the foundation said no one at the foundation would comment on Miller’s statements.

Members of the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department fugitive detail took the boys in an early-morning raid at the Tony and Susan Alamo Christian Foundation Thursday. The boys, ages 4, 9 and 11, had been living at the commune with their mothers, Susan and Carol Ann Miller.

An Orange County Superior Court granted Miller and his brother, Carey, temporary custody of the boys until a hearing on April 11.

Robert Miller, who had been a member of the foundation for 16 years, said he and his brother have been trying to gain custody of their sons since they fled the foundation last September.

The foundation, which is known for distributing anti-Catholic literature, was created by the husband-and-wife team of Tony and Susan Alamo who spread the Gospel to teen-agers 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 along the Sierra Highway in Saugus. The community quickly grew to several hundred people.

The foundation pulled out of Saugus in the 1970s and set up a new ministry close to the towns of Dyer and Alma, Ark. The foundation returned to Saugus in 1985.

Robert Miller, 34, said he joined the foundation when he was 18.

“I had been out of high school for about 10 months and I was looking for something,” he said. “It was the late 1960s and early 1970s and everyone was looking for something new, that would give them direction in their lives. I found the Alamo and it appealed to me because it was Christian, supposedly.

“When I moved in, I hadn’t planned on staying that long. When you first go in, they brainwash you, telling you constantly that anyone not in Alamo is the devil, and when you’re young you don’t know what to believe.”

Miller said he and his brother spent 10 years believing what the Alamos had told them but then slowly became disillusioned. He said they stayed another six years because they didn’t want to leave their families.

The turning point came last September, he said, when Tony Alamo forced him and his brother to sign over their small trucking business to the foundation.

“He and his cronies dragged us out of bed in the middle of the night and threatened us,” he said. “We realized it was no good to refuse, so we did what he asked and got out of there as quickly as we could. We didn’t abandon our children. But we knew if we stayed our lives would be in danger and that our kids would be safer if we left. Our wives are so under the control of Alamo we knew that they wouldn’t believe us if we told them what happened.”

The brothers settled in Orange and began a court battle to get custody of their children. In the meantime, the foundation declared them divorced from their wives, and their wives remarried Alamo aides.

Miller said his 4- and 9-year-old sons were not living with their mothers at the Saugus commune.

“They told me the were living in a tiny house called the ‘nursery’ with about four or five other children while my wife and the guy she’s living with lived in a camper,” Miller said.

He said his 11-year-old nephew lived with a couple in a bedroom of a house occupied by about nine other people, while his mother and her new ”husband” lived in another house.

“When we first got the boys Thursday morning, they were kind of stiff,” Miller said. “The eldest, my nephew sat in the van while we were at the commune very stiff. He was so ridged, he wouldn’t look at any of us. He just stared straight ahead. But as soon as we drove away from the commune, he started to relax, and as we got farther away, he started laugh and say how glad he as to see us, especially his father. That’s how all the children were.”

SECT LEADER DENIES CHILD ABUSE

Fundamentalist Christian leader Tony Alamo insisted Friday that children were not abused at his commune, saying there was no foundation for issuing an arrest warrant for him on that charge.

Nine members of Alamo’s sect were arrested Thursday at his northern Los Angeles County commune, four of them for investigation of felony child abuse.

“This is the first time this kind of an accusation has ever come up to our church regarding child abuse,” Alamo said in a telephone call to Los Angeles radio station KABC. “We’ve never abused any children. We’re accused of spoiling our children rotten.”

Thursday’s raid was based on warrants issued after a boy removed from the commune by court order last week said he and other children were beaten by adult members, sheriff’s Deputy Dan Cox said.

The four taken into custody in connection with the child abuse investigation were identified as Terry Farr, 36, Kerry Yunkin, 35, Dough Christopher, 34, and Berry Hanes, 36, authorities said. They all were held in lieu of $20,000 bail. ”If I’m apprehended, then I am. I don’t have anything to hide,” Alamo said. He had not been arrested as of Friday afternoon, deputies said.

CAN (Cult Awareness Network) News
February 13, 1988

Ex-Alamo member continues 5-1/2-year search for children

It has been 5-1/2 years since Judy Shapiro has seen her two daughters, Abigail Robin, 11, and Joanna Beth, 10. Shapiro bitterly feels that a group that she viewed as her friends, the members of the Tony and Susan Alamo Christian Foundation, has been keeping her children from her since 1982 on the orders of Tony Alamo.

Shapiro joined the church in 1970. Her mother and stepfather, who were attending the church in Hollywood, Calif., encouraged her to join. In April, 1971, she began living with other church members at Saugus, Calif. She quit her job with an insurance company and spent her time reading the Bible and praying, attending nightly meetings and witnessing in Hollywood for the cult.

In 1972, Shapiro’s parents became disillusioned with Tony and Susan Alamo’s lavish lifestyle and left the church, but were unable to persuade Shapiro to quit also,

In 1975 Shapiro was so convinced her future was with the church, she wrote Susan Alamo that she thought she was in love with Daniel Shapiro, another church member she barely knew.

On Sept. 20, 1975, Daniel Shapiro, contrary to his personal wishes, married her because Susan Alamo believed it was God’s will.

The rigid life style of the church allowed the couple to see each other less than 24 hours a week. During the week they lived apart. Both worked 7 days a week for church-run businesses for no wages.

On Aug. 11, 1976, Shapiro gave birth to
Abigail Robin, In November her husband was sent to Dyer, Ark., to live with other church members. Shapiro and Abigail were allowed to follow in January, but Shapiro was, again, not allowed to live with her husband.

On Dec. 15, 1977, she gave birth to Joanna Beth, Susan Alamo also tried to have Shapiro and her children live apart, but Shapiro refused.

As her children grew older, Shapiro became discouraged with life in the Church. The lack of family life, the control of her time, and the prohibition against contact with the outside world, including her family, caused her to question the church’s lifestyle.

In November, 1981, at the church’s suggestion, her husband told her she should consider leaving the Alamo Foundation because of her dissident attitude,

Shapiro visited her family in California to think about her commitment to the cult. After three weeks, she called her husband to tell him she wanted to return, but he told her she was not welcome back,
Shapiro filed for divorce and returned to Arkansas, hoping to take her children back to California with her.

She began divorce proceedings in July, 1982, and her husband (on the orders of the Chancery Court of Crawford County, Ark.) brought the girls to see her on two occasions–the last time she would see her children.

On July 20, 1982, Shapiro was awarded temporary custody of the children and granted permission to take them to California for 10 days. However, her husband’s attorney announced in court that Dan Shapiro had taken the children and supposedly fled to Kentucky.

Ex-Alamo member searches for children

Although on Aug. 3 she was granted permanent custody, the children have never been located. Shapiro is certain her husband is still working for the Alamo Foundation. Susan Alamo died in 1982, but Shapiro feels that on Tony Alamo’s orders, church members are helping to raise her children.

Shapiro, now working in California, says the FBI will follow any leads that may surface concerning her children; she is hopeful that someone will leave the Tony and Susan Alamo Christian Foundation and come forward regarding the whereabouts of her children, or will contact the Adam Walsh Child Resource Center, at 714-740-2660, with this information.

The Newhall Signal
October 13, 1989

Alamo changes mind. Won’t surrender; denies affiliation with Saugus church

Tony Alamo has changed his mind.

Alamo, the 54-year-old religious leader charged with child endangerment, said Thursday he will turn himself in to the FBI and denied any affiliation with the Holy Alamo Christian Church in Saugus or the Alamo designs line of clothing.

Attributing his decision to a “one-sided smear campaign,” Alamo said he must get his point across and clear the Alamo Designs name.

Alamo Designs clothing was yanked from racks of numerous clothing stores in recent months after the Commission on Cults of the Jewish Federation Council told store owners and managers that Alamo is the leader of a religious cult and is wanted by the FBI.

But Alamo said during a phone conversation Thursday he has nothing to do with the Alamo Designs company – he is hired by the clothing manufacturer as a “freelance designer.”

“I have a press release coming out on the Jewish Federation. I can’t understand, of all the people…why they would attack me like that…How could I be a cult leader? I’m just leading myself here.”

Alamo added he has severed all ties with the Holy Alamo Christian Church in Saugus and Arkansas.

“My ministry is to the five billion people in the world – and I’m not connected to the churches what-so-ever.”

Alamo is wanted by the FBI for unlawful flight to avoid prosecution, and FBI spokesman Jim Neilson said Thursday Alamo had not turned himself in.

An Alamo church volunteer announced earlier this week Alamo planned to do so, but Neilson said, “He’s still a fugitive.”

A federal warrant for Alamo’s arrest was issued in April when authorities were unable to locate Alamo to respond to charges stemming from an incident last year at Alamo’s Sierra Highway church in which he allegedly instructed followers to beat the 14-year-old son of a church member.

“I don’t feel that I’d like to go in to a paid bunch of criminal liars for a court case,” he said, adding, “I’ve got thousands of witnesses who will testify on my behalf that none of that type of stuff ever happened at my church – ever.”

Arkansas Democrat
October 9, 1989

Alamo On The Run

Fundamentalist, preacher Tony Alamo on Sunday failed to make good on his claim that he would turn himself into federal authorities over the week end.

A spokesman for Alamo, the Arkansas-based fugitive wanted by the FBI on child abuse charges in California, told the Arkansas Democrat on Saturday that Alamo wanted to surrender in Florida either Saturday or Sunday. But he said the preacher feared the FBI would kill him.

On Sunday, another Alamo spokesman said the FBI approved Alamo’s reasons for putting off his surrender.

Alamo, an eccentric 54-year-old multimillionaire and former administrator of a conservative religious empire, has gained notoriety over the years for his claims that the federal government is a puppet of the Roman Catholic Church.

“The reason Tony Alamo has not turned himself in yet is the FBI in Los Angeles gave Tony Alamo several days to turn himself into California,” said Steve Lovette, a Fort Smith associate of Alamo’s who read Sunday from a prepared statement.

“They said that it would be all right for Tony to travel to California so that he would not have to spend so many days in jail.”

“If he were to turn himself in Florida he would have to sit in jail for 20 days for extradition and he didn’t want to do that,” said Lovette, speaking from Alamo headquarters near Alma (Crawford County). “They said it’s all right to come in to California and turn himself in to California.”

But a spokesman for the FBI bureau in Jacksonville, Fla., which has been contacted by Alamo representatives, said Sunday he knew of no such dialogue between the FBI and Alamo.

“All I know is we’ve heard the individual claimed he was going to surrender and I don’t know anything beyond that,” said the spokesman.

The charges Alamo faces stem from an investigation triggered by an interview of a child removed by court order from an Alamo compound in Orange County, Calif.

The compound was raided by police March 31, but they could find no trace of him. Four men were arrested during the raid, however, and several people were detained on unrelated charges ranging from probation violations to traffic warrants.

The FBI became involved in the case after Alamo fled California.

Alamo, born, in Joplin, Mo., founded his church in California in 1969 and moved its headquarters to Crawford County, Ark., in 1975. It originally served as a street-corner ministry to assist drug addicts and the homeless.
Together, Alamo and one of his former wives, Susan, created a religious empire. Critics said it was a cult-business erected on the backs of its members, who provided free labor in exchange for housing, food and clothing.

At its height, the Tony and Susan Alamo Christian Foundation owned dozens of businesses, including nationally recognized clothing store at Nashville, Tenn., a restaurant at Alma and numerous construction and service-related companies.

The empire began to crumble after Susan Alamo died of cancer in 1982. The Internal Revenue Service revoked the organizations tax exempt status in 1985. Alamo lost a number of court battles that could force him to pay back wages and taxes totaling millions of dollars.

Several of his Crawford County businesses have been closed or sold but his property holdings are still valued in excess of $4 million.

The Associated Press contributed to this story

CAN (Cult Awareness Network) News
August 1, 1989

FBI begins manhunt for Tony Alamo

FBI agents raided a Las Vegas, Nevada home July 25 in an unsuccessful search for Tony Alamo, leader of a religious cult. Alamo, under the alias Clarence Williams, has been evading a federal arrest warrant issued in April by the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office in connection with felony child abuse charges filed against Alamo and five of his Followers in October.

Alamo is the founder of the Tony and Susan Alamo Foundation, a secretive anti-Catholic Bible-based cult also known as the Holiness Tabernacle Church and the Music-Square Church that operates in Arkansas, Illinois and Tennessee.

Until recently the charges remained secret to give police time to track down the suspects and arrest them without scaring them off. However, police have been unable to locate them and so decided to publicize the issuance of the arrest warrants.

“We have basically done every thing we can to find these people without scaring them away,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Robert B. Foltz. With Alamo’s financial resources, Foltz said, “He could be living in Brazil tomorrow and we will never see him again.”

The charges are the result of a beating that had been administered to 12-year-old Justin Miller, son of Carol Ann Miller Landgarten, 36, who is among those facing charges. Authorities contend that Justin was beaten on the buttocks 140 times with a three-foot paddle in January, 1988, at the cult’s commune in Mint Canyon, near Saugus, Calif.

Alamo is accused of ordering the punishment via speaker phone from a bungalow next door. Justin allegedly was being punished for “disrespectful behavior.” After each of Justin’s transgressions was read aloud, Alamo told how many times the boy should be paddled. According to Justin, three men held him down while a fourth administered the blows. His mother shouted things at him such as: “You’re a liar, just like your father. We’re just going to have to beat the father out of you.”

In Sept., 1987, Justin’s father, Carey Miller, 35, had rejected Alamo’s teachings and fled the commune with Justin’s uncle, Bob Miller, 37. Justin and his two cousins, Cody Miller, 11, and Bobby Lee Miller, 5, were later taken from the commune by sheriff’s police. In March, 1988, an Orange County Superior Court judge granted permanent custody to the children’s fathers and ordered the two mothers to come no closer than 200 yards to the houses or schools,

Justin’s physical condition prompted a raid on the commune in March, 1988, during which paddles and other evidence were confiscated. No criminal charges were brought at that time, however, because the physical evidence, including the deep tissue bruises noted on Justin, still wasn’t enough to secure a conviction, according to the state’s attorney. However, a former Alamo church member who saw the attack has since cooperated with authorities so that arrest warrants could be issued.

The others charged besides Alamo and Justin’s mother are Allen Rehn, 35; Kerry Warren Younkin, 37; and Marc Stuart Landgarten, 40.

Sources (From “6 in sect charged with child abuse” by Lynn O’Shaughnessy, Los Angeles Times, April 15, 1989, pg II-3 ;and “FBI hunts for cult leader Tony Alamo, Los Angeles Times, July 27, 1989.)

The leader of a fundamentalist Christian sect, notorious for his anti-Roman Catholic propaganda and attempts to raise his first wife from the dead, is entangled in a child custody dispute in which an Elk Grove Village has been unable to find her children.

Mary Lou Weinzetl, 23, is trying to find her children, 4-year-old Jacquelyn M. Amundson and 2-month-old Brendan M. Broderick, whom she left this summer at the Tony and Susan Alamo Christian Foundation of Alma, Ark., when she broke from the sect. She was unable to find them when she returned for them this month.

Robert S. Blatt, a Fort Smith, Ark., attorney representing Weinzetl, said Monday that Alamo followers have told police they don’t know where the children are. The children are most likely with the boy’s father, Alamo devotee Brian M. Broderick, Blatt said.

Sect leader Tony Alamo, reached in Los Angeles, said Broderick had left Alma about a month ago. “I don’t know where he is,” he said.

Alamo contended the matter was a custody dispute that had nothing to do with his ministry.

Alamo, 53, heads the small, non-denominational fundamentalist sect that has been charged by critics as exercising cultlike control over members’ movements. It is based in Crawford County, Ark., with branches in major U.S. cities.

Started in 1969 and noted for anti-Roman Catholic tracts, the foundation has branched out into several businesses worth millions of dollars, according to a report by the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith. The businesses range from retail and service companies to cement and clothing operations, the Anti-Defamation League said.

`Looking for help’

Weinzetl joined the sect last year after her first marriage ended. “I was looking for help,” she said. She moved to Arkansas with her daughter, and while working for Alamo she met and “married” Broderick. Weinzetl said they had a son.

The legality of the wedding is in doubt, Blatt said, because Arkansas officials have no record of it.

“I left five or six times” before making a final break Aug. 25, Weinzetl said. “They worked you all the time and followed you everywhere. It was terrible.”

When she left for good, Weinzetl said, “Tony Alamo told me I had to sign a piece of paper (turning the children over to Broderick) before I could leave. I knew it wasn’t legal, but I signed it anyway because I had to get out and then I could get help getting my children.”

Alamo said she was not coerced. His interest was in the welfare of the children, Alamo said, adding that Weinzetl willingly turned them over to Broderick.

Weinzetl returned Oct. 2 and received a court order authorizing a search for the children at the Alma compound and an Alamo church in nearby Dyer, Blatt said.

Three arrested

Three Alamo followers were arrested and later found to be in contempt of court “after police encountered problems entering and leaving the property.”

On Oct. 6, an Arkansas judge awarded Weinzetl custody of the children, Blatt said.

Alamo made headlines in Chicago in 1982 when his organization offered, as an alternative to abortion, to take unmarried pregnant women to Arkansas to deliver their babies. He said his group would care for the infants if the mothers didn’t want them.

The foundation was party to a 1985 Supreme Court decision, which ruled that religious organizations had to pay their members minimum wage for their work. The Alamo group argued that paying wages to its associates would violate their religious convictions.

Followers of Alamo periodically blanket sections of Chicago with anti-Roman Catholic tracts.

Also in 1982, Alamo’s first wife, Susan, died of cancer. Her body was embalmed and put in a coffin that was placed in a darkened room where foundation members prayed 24 hours a day for her return from the dead. Alamo said he had a vision Susan would be resurrected. He remarried in 1985.

He insists his faith is firmly rooted in the good book, but critics of Tony Alamo – the self-anointed leader of a Christian sect – contend his is the handiwork of the devil.

The saga of Tony Alamo and his Holy Alamo Christian Church is unfolding in rural country towns and major cities, fueled by impassioned anti-Catholic rhetoric and a rigid adherence to the Bible.

This month, his spiritual trail wound its way to New York, with the Aug. 3 arrests of three men in connection with the 1987 abduction of a 17-day-old boy. The baby’s father, Brian Broderick, one of those arrested in lower Manhattan, is a member of the sect. The child’s mother, Mary Lou Weinzetl, was reunited with the boy Monday after a nearly two-year separation.

In a telephone interview yesterday from an undisclosed location in California, Alamo – whose real name is Bernard Hoffman – defended his 25-year-old church, which he maintains has “hundreds of thousands” of followers, a figure disputed by Weinzetl, who put it closer to 500 nationwide.

The sect encourages corporal punishment, members and law enforcement officials say. Alamo, in fact, says that spanking children is outlined in the scriptures.

“The distinguishing mark of our church is that when the government says you cannot spank children, we say we will, because it’s in the Bible,” he said, saying street crime is escalating because “children have not been paddled.”

Law enforcement officials, however, say the sect’s stock in trade is child abuse and baby snatching.

Alamo and five members of his group are charged with felony child abuse in Saugus, Calif., stemming from a January, 1988, incident in which an 11-year-old boy was allegedly struck approximately 140 times on the buttocks with a three-foot paddle.

A warrant for Alamo’s arrest has been issued in California, but Alamo insisted yesterday he is not in hiding. “They are trying to make me appear as though I’m on the run, but I’m not. I’m quite sure the FBI would kill me,” he said.

Alamo said his church survives through the manufacture and sale of clothing to the likes of Elizabeth Taylor and Mike Tyson. Based in Alma, Ark., it has chapters in Chicago, Omaha, Nashville, Saugus, and Brooklyn, Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau said yesterday. In Brooklyn, the sect was supposed to have operated out of a building at 217 Cortelyou Rd., though a resident there said yesterday the cult had not been active in about five years.

Alamo is also the leader of the fundamentalist Christian Foundation, operates the Tony and Susan Alamo Foundation, which is known for circulating anti-Catholic literature. The organization, an offshoot of the Holiness Tabernacle of Alma, Ark., has branches in Illinois and Tennessee, according to FBI investigators.

Weinzetl said the church was created to benefit but one person – Tony Alamo.

“They’re doing everything they’re doing for Tony Alamo and his personal gain, power and money,” she said. “People really believe they’re doing this for the Lord and they’re not . . . I think the children in the church are at risk.”

Copyright Newsday Inc., 1989

SEE MAIN STORY: Boy 2, Reunited with Mom. Spent his life with dad in Christian cult.

Both mother and son have warm hazel eyes. Their light brown hair curls softly. That they were related seemed obvious. But the 2-year-old boy reached as easily for the police officer standing nearby at yesterday’s news conference as he did for his mother. To him they seemed equally familiar. After all, before their reunion Monday, Brendan had not seen his mother since he was 17 days old.

“I thought I’d never see him again,” said Mary Lou Weinzetl, whose son was returned to her Monday after being found in a van in Manhattan.

As Brendan munched on Skittles in a paper cup, his 25-year-old mother broke into tears.

Every week for the past two years, Weinzetl, who left her son and daughter behind when she broke from a religious cult in Alma, Ark., called the FBI hoping for news. She took her story to the media, contacted politicians and a variety organizations, including the National Center of Missing and Exploited Children . The child she saw Monday surprised her.

“I didn’t expect Brendan to be as big as he was,” Weinzetl said, explaining her thoughts when she first saw her son. “I had a lot of mixed feelings and emotions. I was afraid I was going to scare him more than he was.”

At the first meeting, she recalled, “I just wanted to hug him and kiss him, but he pushed me away.”

In an December 1988 Woman’s World article she wrote, Weinzetl, who won’t say exactly where she lives near Chicago, said she joined Alamo Christian Churches in October, 1986, after she was divorced from her first husband, in suburban Illinois. “I wanted a new start and a good home for my 1-year-old daughter, Jackie,” Weinzetl said, explaining she was “lonely and had no one I could look to for support.” She called an 800-number for information about the church.

At first, she said, the life was ideal. She had no responsibilities and she was “grateful to be guided and protected.” She worked for Tony Alamo, the leader of the group, sewing rhinestone-covered clothes that were sold to country western singers.

Soon, however, the church began taking over making personal decisions from her “family life to sex life.” Just weeks into her stay, she was told she would be marrying Brian Broderick, who became Brendan’s father. Although she fell in love with him, Weinzetl said she became disenchanted with the church, urging her husband to leave it along with her.. The breaking point came, she said, when she went to a lawyer about having her marriage annulled and found it wasn’t legal in the first place.

She said she attempted to leave the church five or six times before Brian Broderick finally gave her a bus ticket home to Illinois. But her husband and church leaders would not allow her daughter or Brendan to leave.

Although her daughter, who is now 3, was returned to Weinzetl five months later by Broderick’s mother, Broderick disappeared with their son.

She said it was difficult when she first left the church, Weinzetl said “I thought I was going to hell” for leaving; to this day she has not set foot in another church. “I don’t feel like I only lost my children, I feel like I was spiritually raped,” she said.