Texarkana Gazette
July 25, 2009
By: Lynn LaRowe

Alamo guilty on all 10 counts
Prosecution believes he will spend life in prison

The five Jane Does and other victims who testified against self-proclaimed evangelist Tony Alamo held hands, wept and hugged Friday as a federal judge proclaimed him guilty 10 times.

Bernie LaZar Hoffman, better known as Alamo, will be sentenced on 10 counts of transporting minors across state lines for sex by U.S. District Judge Harry Barnes in six to eight weeks.

“We believe he will face the rest of his natural life in prison,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney Kyra Jenner, who along with Clay Fowlkes and Candace Taylor presented the government’s case.

Jury foreman Frank Oller said the nine men and three women believed the prosecution’s witnesses and carefully considered each count.

“That was the evidence that was proven,” Oller said. “We came up with a full decision that we are quite satisfied with.”

The jurors who found Alamo guilty at about 10:30 Friday morning came from seven counties that make up the Texarkana Division of the Western District of Arkansas: Miller, Lafayette, Nevada, Hempstead, Little River, Sevier and Howard.

Jenner said FBI Special Agent Randall Harris and Arkansas State Police Sergeant John Bishop conducted the investigation leading to Alamo’s convictions.

“It can’t be lost on anybody that Randall Harris and John Bishop gave a couple years of their careers on this case, gaining the trust of these victims,” said FBI Special Agent in charge Thomas Browne. “Randall hasn’t had a day off since the raid. He’s a gem and we’re fortunate to have him.”

Browne said investigators worked closely with Jenner, Taylor and Fowlkes during the course of their two-year investigation.

Residents of Fouke, Ark., where Alamo’s ministry compound is located, expressed gratitude for the successful prosecution.

“The girls are calling them ‘the dream team,’” said Judy Frazier, who owns and operates Jerry’s General Store with her husband in Fouke, Ark., where Alamo’s ministry/compound is located. Frazier said she knows several of the victims.

“It’s good to know Alamo’s not coming back,” she said.

“Randall there is no way words could express our gratitude,” said Fouke Mayor Terry Purvis as he clasped Harris’ hand. “God love you. Thank you sir.”

Harris said the investigation moved quickly once victims came forward and agreed to testify and said “insinuations” during the trial that the government dragged its feet were inaccurate.

“The girls deserved this day,” Harris said.

The absolute control witnesses described Alamo as exerting over his followers by dictating when they ate, slept, prayed and where and with whom they lived allowed Alamo to escape prosecution for so long, said Charlie Downs, an ex-member of the church. Downs, 21, left the group several years ago after 18 years.

Loyalists were not permitted to use the phone, travel at will, vote or marry without Alamo’s permission, ex-followers have said. Children could be taken from their parents at any time, jobs were assigned by Alamo and children were not allowed to attend school when they were needed to work.

Witnesses testified Alamo left them financially destitute if they chose to leave and told them God would punish them if they did.

“Me and my family were always being put down and ridiculed by Tony,” Downs said. “We were treated like dirt by him.”

The five Jane Does named in Alamo’s federal indictment were brought across state lines for sex and married Alamo as children. Their parents’ devotion to the man they thought talked to God kept them from protecting their daughters, the girls testified.

The fear of physical retribution kept them in line with Alamo’s desires as well, they said. One of the Jane Does testified her 3-year-old brother was beaten with a board and many of the Jane Does said they’d been struck by Alamo.

“You really appreciate the courage they showed stepping up to face their demon,” said Browne of Alamo’s many victims.

Cheers rose in Merfeld’s, a coffee shop across the street from the federal building in downtown Texarkana, as the news of the guilty verdicts was aired on television noon time newscasts. The atmosphere following Barnes’ reading of the jury’s decision was one of elation. Alamo’s devotees left quickly in cars.

“They tried to say this case was about their religious freedom,” said Mary Coker, founder of Partnered Against Cult Activity and a Fouke resident. “It was always about the sexual, mental and physical abuse by Tony Alamo.”

Alamo’s defense team, lead attorney Don Ervin of Houston, Florida lawyer Phillip Kuhn, Texarkana attorney Jeff Harrelson and investigator David Macgonagill, said they were disappointed in the jury’s decision.

“If they’d followed the law they’d have acquitted my client,” said Ervin, who said he plans to appeal the convictions.

Coker said Alamo might still be free if not for the courage of those who testified against him, those who helped the FBI and the “persistence” of Harris.

When questioned by some of the many media representatives outside the courthouse, Alamo vowed to continue running his ministry from prison. Federal marshals led him to and from the courthouse cuffed and chained each day of the trial.

“I’m just another prophet rotting in jail for the gospel,” Alamo said.

Alamo’s prior felony conviction for tax evasion and the nature of the crimes for which he’s been convicted will move the recommendation up on the ranges of punishment he faces.

Each count also includes the possibility of a fine as high as $250,000.

Alamo, 74, could get up to 30 years on three counts, as many as 15 on three others and four counts are punishable by up to 10 years.

If he were to receive the maximum on each charge and if Barnes ordered the penalties to run consecutively, the sentence would total 175 years.

Alamo claims trial unfair in sex convictions

Evangelist Tony Alamo has told a federal appeals court that he should get a new trial because having sex with the minors he brought across state lines wasn’t the primary purpose for transporting the girls.

Alamo attorney John Wesley Hall Jr. said Wednesday that no date for oral arguments has yet been set by the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Alamo also argues in the brief that U.S. District Judge Harry Barnes was guided by his “own sense of religiosity” in sentencing Alamo to 175 years in prison.

Alamo was convicted last year of 10 counts of violating the Mann Act, which prohibits taking minors across state lines for sexual purposes.

Evangelist seeks new trial in Arkansas sexual abuse case

Jailed evangelist Tony Alamo wants a federal appeals court to grant him a new trial on charges he transported minors across state lines for sex or at least order a resentencing because of the trial judge’s references to God.

Alamo attorney John Wesley Hall Jr. argued in a brief submitted to the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis that prosecutors failed to show that sex was the primary purpose for taking young girls from state to state.

Alamo was arrested in Arizona in 2008 after he fled his compound in Fouke in southwestern Arkansas, where he was accused of harboring young girls as his “wives.” State child services workers took 36 children into protective custody and later tried to find about 100 other children of Alamo’s followers who went into hiding with ministry members.

“The government argues that Alamo is guilty because any purported sex was incidental to the purpose of the travel. If sexual conduct, however, is merely incidental to the travel, then no crime has occurred because something being ‘incidental’ belies ‘a dominant purpose as required by the jury instruction and the case law,” Hall wrote in the brief submitted Monday. “They are a contradiction in terms.”

Oral arguments have not been set, but Hall said Wednesday the soonest date would be some time in September.

Hall argues that U.S. District Judge Harry Barnes abused his discretion and violated Hall’s right to due process when he injected his “own sense of religiosity” as he sentenced Alamo to 175 years in prison.

Alamo, 75, was found guilty in 2009 of 10 counts of violating the federal Mann Act, which prohibits taking minors from one state to another for sexual purposes. Alamo was also ordered to pay $2.5 million in restitution, $500,000 each to five Jane Does with whom Alamo allegedly had sex, plus a $250,000 fine.

Alamo maintained his innocence throughout.

At the Nov. 13 sentencing hearing, Barnes told Alamo that the “life imprisonment” sentence would “send a message to others that violation of children, young girls like these victims, shall not be and will not be tolerated.”

The judge also told Alamo that “one day you will face a higher and greater judge than me. May he have mercy on your soul.”

Hall asks the appeals court to order a resentencing by a different judge.

“The sentence here becomes unreasonable … by the mere likelihood of religious influence,” Hall said in the filing.

Alamo himself mentioned God when offered a chance to speak at sentencing.

“Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. I’m glad I’m me and not the deceived people,” Alamo said.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Chris Plumlee, chief of criminal prosecutions for Arkansas’ Western District said Wednesday that he hadn’t seen Hall’s filing and that his office would address Hall’s claims in oral arguments. Hall’s filing was a response to Assistant U.S. Attorney Kyra Jenner’s reply to Hall’s initial appeal brief.

Jenner said in her filing that Barnes was asked during the November hearing to clarify Alamo’s sentence, and he responded that the prison term conformed to federal sentencing guidelines.

In her earlier brief, Jenner noted that the girls were between ages 8 and 14 when Alamo brought them into his house.

“They testified they were transported in interstate commerce with Alamo or transported across state lines at Alamo’s direction. Sexual contact with Alamo occurred during or immediately after,” Jenner wrote.

“Accordingly, there was sufficient evidence for the jury to find Alamo’s intent to transport the minor females in interstate commerce — and a dominant motive for their travel — was to ensure his access to them for his own sexual gratification.”

Jenner wrote that the record shows that Barnes followed multiple elements of the sentencing guidelines, considering Alamo’s record, the age of the victims and Alamo’s custody or supervisory control of the victims.

“Accordingly, the district court did not base Alamo’s sentence on an impermissible factor such as religion,” Jenner wrote.

Alamo is being held in the maximum security wing of a federal prison in Tucson, Ariz., the prison confirmed Wednesday.

Lawyer says Alamo should get new trial
Defense says sex with minors was ‘incidental’

Tony Alamo should get a new trial because sex with minors was “incidental” to his purpose for traveling across state lines, his lawyer argues in Alamo’s most recent appellate brief.

Alamo was convicted in July 2009 of 10 counts in a federal indictment accusing him of bringing five young girls he wed as children across state lines for sex in violation of the Mann Act.

Little Rock defense attorney John Wesley Hall Jr. argues the government got it wrong when the jury was told it had to find that a dominant purpose of travel for the victims was to provide Alamo access to them for sex. Hall argues Alamo’s reason to travel should have been at issue.

“In every instance, the Jane Doe’s presence on the trips was merely incidental to the interstate travel …” the brief said.

Hall points out that in two counts a Jane Doe traveled to Oklahoma without Alamo but was convicted of violating the Mann Act anyway.

At trial, the Jane Doe testified Alamo arranged for her to go to and from her mother’s home in Oklahoma after her father, who was no longer a member of Alamo Ministries, threatened to contact authorities because he feared she was living in Alamo’s house. The girl testified she was instructed to call her father and quell his fears from a phone number distanced from Alamo’s house in Fouke, Ark.

The girl testified Alamo would not have sex with her and consummate their “spiritual marriage” until she had done this because he feared a physical examination of the girl might cause him trouble.

“It shows how strained the government’s reading of the jury instruction and the Mann Act really is as it seeks to hammer the square peg of the proof into the round hole of the jury instruction and case law,” Hall wrote.

Hall argues if the justices of the 8th Circuit, which considers cases on appeal from federal courts including the Texarkana Division of the Western District of Arkansas, agree that Alamo shouldn’t have been found guilty in some of the counts, they should grant him a new trial on all of them because it demonstrates the jury was prejudiced against him.

Hall’s brief also argues Alamo deserves to be resentenced by a different judge because of statements U.S. District Judge Harry Barnes made after imposing a 175-year term.

The brief accuses Barnes of imposing his “own sense of religiosity” when he “referenced a higher judge, God.”

At sentencing Barnes told Alamo that, “One day you will face a higher and greater judge than me. May he have mercy on your soul.”

Hall argues the 175-year sentence, the maximum, wasn’t necessary to ensure that a 75-year-Alamo would spend the rest of his life in prison and was imposed as “religious penance.”

In an earlier brief, the government refuted Hall’s arguments, noting Barnes stated at sentencing he was following federally mandated guidelines to arrive at punishment.

The government has not yet responded to the brief Hall filed Monday.

This video will be available for the next two weeks. Season 23, Episode 35

CLICK HERE TO WATCH TWO OTHER VIDEOS

INTERVIEW WITH A FORMER CHURCH MEMBER
WALKTHROUGH OF THE ALAMO CHURCH COMPOUND WITH LYNN LAROWE
CLICK ON THE TAB MARKED “MEDIA”

JOHN KOLBEK
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. The group officially incorporated into the Tony and Susan Alamo Foundation on Jan. 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 8 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 8. 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 Sept. 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 July 8, 2010)

Television Airings:

* »July 10, 2010
* »December 12, 2009

Arkansas State Police investigator retires

When the Tony Alamo Christian Ministries compound raid started in Fouke, Ark., State Police Sgt. John Bishop had to call 911 to get help.

Bishop was already in Fouke prior to the raid where search warrants were served Sept. 20, 2008. He noticed several of the children and a couple of vans were gone.

As a state police investigator, Bishop doesn’t think “like a choir boy” and suspected the children had been escorted out of the Alamo compound by Alamo followers.

“All I knew, I could see they had fled the compound. I followed a hunch and went north of … (state Highway) 549 when I saw 30 carloads of officers headed to the compound. It was the dog and pony show coming and I took off north,” Bishop said, who retired from the state police last Wednesday.

“It was my case and I called the major and the captain for permission and told them I was leaving the compound to find the kids.

“I ran that Durango as hard as it could go. I ran it 110 mph and caught the two vans about one-half mile from the state line. I had a Department of Human Services attorney with me. She was 23 years old and her eyes were wide open,” Bishop said.

He was unable to contact other law enforcement agencies by police radio and resorted to calling the 911 dispatcher for “backup” on the Durango’s hands-free cell phone.

Supervisors in the raid finally “turned loose” a couple of officers to get to the location where Bishop had stopped the van and served as “backups.”

The two vans were carrying 17 children and four adults.

He describes the arrest of Alamo, his conviction and being sentenced to 175 years in prison as a “successful conclusion.”

Alamo was convicted for bringing young girls he would marry as children across state lines for sex.

When the Alamo investigation started, Bishop was the only state police agent assigned to it. Later, other state police agents joined in the investigation.

He worked on the case for six years and assisted FBI Agent Randall Harris, who retired earlier this year.

The investigation required Bishop to be flown to Connecticut to interview a child bride. As one woman cooperated, additional victims started coming forward.

The lifestyle is hard to comprehend for Bishop.

“It’s hard to imagine people are out there with no identity. They were scared to come forward to law enforcement. Kids were not in public schools and didn’t have birth certificates. They have no Social Security cards. It was completely foreign to what we normally work,” Bishop said.

In October 2008, Bishop received the Outstanding Officer of the Year Award, along with Special Agent Scott Clark and Hempstead County Sheriff’s Department Lt. Franky McJunkins. The awards were presented by Arkansas Attorney General Dustin McDaniel.

The award stems from a March 12, 2008, homicide investigation. McJunkins, Clark and Bishop went to a mobile home in Hempstead County in search of suspect Fred Moore. The officers had gone to Moore’s residence to question him about the death of Donald K. McGee of Evening Shade and about the disappearance of McGee’s pickup.

As Clark and McJunkins entered the mobile home, they noticed opaque, plastic sheeting hanging from the ceiling, which prevented them from seeing either end of the mobile home.

As the officers searched the interior, Bishop kept watch on the rear of the home from the outside.

“When they reached the rear master bedroom, a man’s voice told them in explicit language to leave the mobile home immediately,” said Lt. Glenn C. Sligh, Arkansas State Police Company C criminal investigation division commander.

The officers drew their weapons and retreated to a place of cover while telling the man they were complying with his request.

Before Clark could get back under the plastic sheeting, the man stepped out from his hiding place and was armed. He fired one shot, striking Clark in the right arm.

Clark fell back under the plastic sheeting and told McJunkins he was hit.

Both officers “returned suppressive fire in the direction of the rear master bedroom where Moore had retreated,” Sligh said.

Bishop heard the initial confrontation inside the trailer and entered the home as Clark was shot. Though wounded, Clark returned to his vehicle, retrieved another weapon and went back inside the home to assist the other officers.

Bishop ordered Clark to leave the weapon with him and get out of the mobile home.

Sligh arrived at the mobile home as shots were being fired. Some projectiles went through the side of the home, causing shrapnel to strike Sligh’s vehicle.

Sligh noticed Clark was wounded, ordered him to get into his car and drove to the Hope hospital.

Bishop and McJunkins secured the scene until other officers arrived. They determined the suspect had been killed in the exchange of gunfire.

Bishop was nominated for “stepping into the line of fire to protect a fallen officer,” Sligh said.

“While securing the scene, Sgt. Bishop remained calm and in remarkable control, using his cell phone to call for additional investigative units to respond as he held his weapon in the direction of the threat, not knowing if Moore was still a potential threat,” Sligh said.

Sligh nominated Clark for “bravery and perseverance under fire and his willingness to return to the scene after being wounded to protect his fellow officers,” and his “presence of mind to see what needed to be done under extremely stressful circumstances and his ability to communicate to responding officers.”

Sligh said McJunkins, “as a result of his professionalism and bravery … placed himself in harm’s way to assist a fallen comrade, allowing the wounded Clark to exit the home.”

Bishop and ASP Special Agent Hays McWhirter also received commendations for their investigation into a double homicide in Miller County in February 2005.

The murder investigation by Bishop and McWhirter resulted in the arrests of five people. The officers assisted Miller County Sheriff’s Department in the investigation into the deaths of Billy Drumm III, 22, and Patrick Dickey, 21.

Squirrel hunters found the bodies of Drumm and Dickey inside a burned vehicle on private property near Doddridge. The victims had been burned beyond recognition and had to be identified through DNA at the state crime lab in Little Rock.

However, Bishop and McWhirter showed fear of a snake during an assignment in Northwest Arkansas in 1985 while serving on the state police SWAT team.

The assignment was to keep a house under surveillance during a night shift. Officers with night-vision goggles had to escort Bishop and McWhirter to the site and then leave them without flashlights.

The officers laid down on the ground to stay out of sight.

Bishop laid down on his back and on top of a snake.

“He just laid down on the snake and then got it and threw it toward me. The rest of the night, I was wondering where the snake was. We didn’t have flashlights and couldn’t see where the snake was,” McWhirter said.

“I gave him a royal cussing all night on why he threw the snake toward me,” he said.

On Bishop’s retirement, Sligh said, “I hate to lose him. It will be impossible to fill his shoes. It will be hard to replace his experience, if not impossible.”

Alamo group appeals decision
Judge dismissed suit alleging DHS used custody cases to disband ministry

Tony Alamo Christian Ministries filed a brief this week urging a federal appeals court to send the case back to the federal district court that dismissed it.

Last year, the ministry and members Bert Krantz and Greg Seago, whose children had been taken by the state, filed a civil lawsuit alleging the Arkansas Department of Human services used a child abuse investigation as a pretense to disband the group.

Earlier this year, U.S. District Judge Harry Barnes of the Texarkana Division of the Western District of Arkansas dismissed the case. He ruled that long-accepted legal doctrine preventing federal court intervention in state court proceedings, such as custody cases, and a lack of standing by the church to bring the lawsuit warranted a dismissal.

The ministry argues that because it isn’t a party in the state custody proceedings concerning the children of Alamo loyalists, it has no opportunity to get relief from the state court. The ministry’s lawyer argues in the brief that abstention doctrine shouldn’t apply.

Abstention doctrine allows a court to refuse to hear a case if hearing the case would encroach upon the authority of another court.

“As Tony Alamo Christian Ministries has repeatedly recognized on appeal, it likely was a mistake to have brought the case with Krantz and Seago because it invited … abstention from their mere presence,” the brief said. “So Tony Alamo Christian Ministries has to jettison Krantz and Seago to have any chance on appeal, and it asserted that it is being harmed separate from the parents.”

Hall’s brief alleges that the ministry will be in a legal “no man’s land” if the courts find that abstention doctrine applies to the ministry because it is not a party in the state custody cases.

In the civil complaint, the ministry says it is being harmed because members with children have fled to avoid child welfare officials. The loss of members has reduced the number of individuals living and working as volunteers on ministry properties.

The suit alleges the ministry has been harmed by DHS’ action with a decrease in donations and a hampering of its ability to spread the message of Tony Alamo after the September 2008 raid on ministry property.

In his opinion dismissing the civil case that the ministry is now appealing, Barnes ruled that the ministry has no “legally protected interest” that is being injured.

The appeal of Barnes’ dismissal of the civil suit is pending in the federal 8th Circuit appellate court.

On Thursday, the Arkansas Supreme Court declined to review the cases of three Alamo families whose children were taken by the state.

The state court of appeals previously denied the parents’ requests for relief from rulings made by Circuit Judge Joe Griffin that the children would remain in state care. The children were found to be in danger of abuse or neglect in the form of beatings, forced fasts, underage marriage and a lack of basic education and medical treatment.

Tony Alamo was convicted in July 2009 on all 10 counts listed in a federal indictment accusing him of bringing young girls he’d wed across state lines for sex. He is appealing the conviction.

Government: Alamo conviction sound

Tony Alamo’s conviction by a jury was based on sound evidence and his sentence by a judge on federal law, a brief filed Monday by the government states.

The 59-page document refutes arguments put forth in an April appellate brief filed by Alamo lawyer John Wesley Hall Jr. of Little Rock. In it, Hall accuses the jury of convicting Alamo of all 10 counts in his federal indictment without sufficient evidence and accuses U.S. District Judge Harry Barnes of imposing his “own sense of religiosity” when he sentenced the disgraced evangelist to 175 years in federal prison. Alamo was convicted of violating federal law by transporting five women he’d wed as children across state lines for sex.

Alamo was convicted after a two-week trial in July 2009. In November, Barnes ordered Alamo, whose given name is Bernie LaZar Hoffman, to serve the maximum term on each count consecutively.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Kyra Jenner’s brief flatly denies Hall’s arguments.

Jenner argues the jury found the five Jane Does listed in Alamo’s indictment credible witnesses and outlines how each victim was made to travel with Alamo so that his sexual relationship with them could continue.

In Alamo’s appeal, he argues that sex with the girls was “incidental” and not a dominant purpose for their travel.

“They traveled at Alamo’s behest. The jury heard evidence the transportation of the minors in interstate commerce served no purpose other than to be sexually exploited by Alamo,” Jenner wrote.

In his appeal, Alamo argued statements made by Barnes at his sentencing hearing demonstrated an improper consideration of the judge’s own beliefs.

“One day you will face a higher and greater judge than me,” Barnes said at the hearing’s close. “May he have mercy on your soul.”

Jenner’s response alleges that other statements made by Barnes outlining the reasoning he followed to fashion Alamo’s sentence are based on federal law, not personal beliefs.

At the sentencing hearing, Barnes reviewed a presentence report and federal guidelines, noting that established sentencing guidelines put Alamo’s recommended punishment “… off the chart, we’re looking at life.”

“Notwithstanding, Mr. Alamo, you were found guilty in a court by 12 people, your peers,” Barnes said at the hearing. “Hopefully, this sentence, life imprisonment, will uphold the law and respect for the law and send a message to others that violation of children, young girls like these victims, shall not be and will not be tolerated in the courts around this United States of America.”

Following Barnes’ statement concerning a higher judge, Alamo’s trial attorney, Don Ervin of Houston, asked for “clarification about the imposition of sentence.”

Barnes responded by stating, “… this is a guideline sentence.”

The appeal is pending in the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Judge orders probe of Alamo-linked warehouse

A federal judge has ordered the inspection and inventory of a Booneville, Ark., warehouse linked to Tony Alamo Christian Ministries.

Inside the warehouse are supposed to be Tempur-Pedic mattresses, pillows and slippers that are the subject of a federal lawsuit naming a high-ranking member of Alamo Ministries and a ministry-associated charity among the defendants.

Tempur-Pedic filed the suit in 2007 after goods the company donated for victims of Hurricane Katrina began appearing for sale. An injunction preventing Action Distributors, which controls the warehouse in Booneville, was issued in March 2007 prohibiting the defendants from moving, selling or destroying the goods.

Last week, Closeout Surplus and Savings, a defendant in the suit that claims to have puchased $500,000 in mattresses from Action Distributors principal Tommy Scarcello, was granted a motion to inspect and inventory the goods in the Booneville warehouse. The inventory will be conducted by Tempur-Pedic and Closeout Surplus and Savings jointly, said the order signed June 17 by U.S. Magistrate Judge James Marschewski in the Fort Smith division of the Western District of Arkansas. The inspection is to be conducted within 45 days.

The order directs Action Distributors to “accommodate the Tempur-Pedic and CSS representatives.”

Witnesses testified at Tony Alamo’s criminal trial that Action Distributors is run for the benefit of Alamo Ministries. Alamo was convicted in July of 10 federal charges of bringing young girls across state lines for sex. He is serving a 175-year sentence at a federal prison in Tucson, Ariz.

In 2008, the Tempur-Pedic lawsuit came to a halt when Scarcello, Waste to Charity and other defendants filed for bankruptcy.

Since then Scarcello’s bankruptcy case has been reopened amid allegations he may have fraudulently underreported his assets or wrongfully transferred assets before filing for debt relief.

An entry on the docket in Scarcello’s bankruptcy case indicates a “criminal referral” was made by the trustee in December 2009 after a hearing was held to review documents the court ordered Scarcello to produce.

In the motion, CSS lawyers say Scarcello is nowhere to be found.

“In an effort to inspect the Booneville warehouse without judicial involvement, counsel for CSS contacted Mr. Scarcello’s bankruptcy attorney, Darrell W. Johnson of Fort Smith, Ark.,” the motion said. “Mr. Johnson, however, said that he only represented Mr. Scarcello in the bankruptcy matter, that he was not aware of the Booneville warehouse, that he had no reliable means of contacting Mr. Scarcello, that Mr. Scarcello was traveling and that he did not believe that he could arrange for an inspection of the Booneville warehouse.”

The attorney representing Closeout Surplus and Savings did not respond to a call Monday.

According to court documents, Scarcello does not have a lawyer representing him in the mattress lawsuit and Action Distributors has “defaulted and is not participating in the litigation.”