Alamo Found Guilty of Tax Evasion, Jailed

A federal jury Wednesday convicted Tony Alamo on tax charges and the preacher-clothes designer was ordered held in jail without bond. Alamo faces up to six years total on the four counts against him. His sentencing is set for Aug. 26.

U.S. Dist. Judge Jon McCalla ordered Alamo held without bond after a government witness testified that Alamo may have committed bigamy and statutory rape in the past 18 months.

The Witness, IRS special agent David Kimbrough, quoting one of Alamo’s ex-wives, said Alamo took as many as nine wives, mostly teen and some as young as 15 years old. Kimbrough said some of the teenage wives were forced into the church marriages by threats of being thrown out of the church. At least one woman told agents she was forced to have sex with Alamo.

McCalla said anyone hearing Wednesday’s testimony would be concerned due to “the very great control Mr. Alamo has over a great number of people.

Justice Department attorney Christopher Belcher also pointed out that Alamo was a fugitive between mid-1989 and mid-1991, when he was wanted on several criminal charges. He still faces felony child abuse charges in California, where he is accused of ordering the beating of the child of a follower…

Kimbrough said members of Alamo’s church told IRS agents that they feared for their own daughters because Alamo recently had begun marrying girls as young as 12, and even suggested that he would marry his own stepdaughter, who is 11…

For the jurors, Alamo’s testimony worked against him, she said: “He said we were sitting in the building of the church of Satan,” in reference to his theory of a one-world church…

Among the 40 witnesses called by the government were former followers and three of Alamo’s ex-wives who detailed his extravagant spending for himself and his wives.

An Arkansas banker testified that Alamo alone controlled more than 20 bank accounts in the name of various businesses under the Music Square Church.

Alamo took the witness stand himself to deny that he had any income in the years in question. He said that as the pastor, he was supported by the church, and that everything he did was to further his ministry.

He expounded on his theory of a conspiracy by the “Lucifer-worshipping” forces of the Vatican, IRS, FBI, Mafia and the new media, which he said was trying to create a “one-world” church/government to rule the world.

He invoked the Fifth Amendment 10 times when Belcher asked him whether he had multiple wives.

SOURCE: Chris Conley The Commercial Appeal

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Questions repeatedly bring Fifth Amendment from Alamo

A federal prosecutor Thursday accused Tony Alamo of having as many as seven wives at a time, beating teenage followers to assert his authority and directing an arson to collect insurance. Alamo, on the witness stand for the third day, repeatedly invoked the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination as he was drilled by Justice Department lawyer Christopher Belcher.

“You coerced several (women) into marrying you by saying you had a message from God that something very bad would happen if they didn’t marry you?,” Belcher asked.

Alamo took the Fifth Amendment on that question, as he did when Belcher inquired if it was true that Alamo had threatened to throw the parents of one young woman out of the church unless they gave permission for their daughter to marry him.

Alamo is charged in federal court with falsifying his income tax return for 1985 and willfully failing, to file for the years 1986, 1987 and 1988. U.S. Dist. Judge Jon McCalla allowed prosecutors to probe Alamo’s personal life, including his marital status, to counter testimony Alamo gave earlier about his good deeds.

During his cross -examination Thursday, Belcher produced records to show that Alamo was still married to a Birgitta Gyllenhamer when he married Elizabeth Caldwell.

Alamo said he may still have been married to Caldwell when he was married in a church ceremony to a third woman, Elena Williams.

“It’s possible … I don’t recall. In my mind I was divorced.”

Asked whether he has had up to seven wives at a time in the last two years, Alamo again reached for the Fifth Amendment.

When Belcher asked whether he followed state laws on bigamy. Alamo invoked the Fifth Amendment at the advice of attorney Jeffrey Dickstein.

Alamo denied the child beating and arson accusations.

He said he did not direct the beating of a 14 -year-old girl on Valentine’s Day in 1984. The girl, Belcher said, was hit more than 100 times with a board.

Alamo denied laughing when an adult member told him “the board was still smoking” after the alleged beating of another youth.

Alamo faces felony child abuse charges in California in the alleged beating of the son of a former member.

Belcher asked Alamo about a series of fires that occurred between 1990 and 1992 to buildings connected to Alamo or his church, and specifically about a fire at his home in Nashville in 1992.

“For sure, I don’t know anything about it,” Alamo replied.

Asked whether he had people in his organization who would set fires at his command, Alamo answered, “I believe there are in your organization.”

Alamo expounded on his theory that the Vatican directs a world-wide “Lucifer-worshiping” conspiracy to control the world through a church/government. Also included in the plot are the international banking community, labor unions, Mafia, and “most of the heavy-weight news media,” he said.

The federal building, where he is on trial on the tax charges, is a church house for the “one-world government” said Alamo.

At one point in the cross-examination, Alamo turned to McCalla and said,

“They’re trying to make me out to be a kook.”

When Belcher pointed out that the command by Jesus Christ to render to Caesar his due appears in two books of the New Testament, Alamo laughed.

“The government’s read the Bible, praise the Lord.”

SOURCE: Chris Conley The Commercial Appeal

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“A sentencing hearing for the convicted preacher-clothes designer Tony Alamo is expected to conclude Thursday before U.S. Dist. Judge Jon McCalla.

Former wives of Alamo called by government prosecutors testified that they were beaten and raped while part of his religious group.

Jodie Fryer testified that she was forced to marry Alamo when she was 17 because she “believe he was a true prophet… God’s mouthpiece.” “I thought if I didn’t go through with the ceremony I would burn in hell,” she said.

A federal jury convinced Alamo on four tax counts in June. He could
face a total of up to six years in prison. Alamo hired a new lawyer,
Susan James, after his conviction.

Because of the length of some testimony Friday, McCalla said he would
schedule a second day of testimony.

Southwest Times Record
June 6, 1994

YOUR VIEWS

In the 6/4/94 edition of SWTR was the news story of Tony Alamo’s tax trial, where he took the Fifth Amendment when asked about having more than one wife at the same time. This is called polygamy. That same day the story ran in SWTR, guess what I found plastered on the windshield of my car? An Alamo news letter! Guess what the subject was this time.
Polygamists of the Bible!

Perfect timing, Tony.

The Alamo papers listed various men of the Bible who had two or more wives, plus concubines (mistresses). One such man whom Alamo used as his main character reference, was Abraham. Just because Abraham did it, does it make it right?

Isn’t it amazing how people, including so-called preachers, can use the Bible to justify themselves when the need arises — R.W. Goodwin, Fort Smith

Target Magazine
February 1994

ALL IN FAVOR OF POLYGAMY SAY “TONY!”

The Tony whom we speak was born Bernie L. Hoffman, adopting the stage name Tony Alamo when trying to break into the entertainment world as a singer. He thought it sounded Italian and he was convinced members of that nationality possess considerable influence in the music profession. (His name has never been changed, legally.)

According to the tons of literature he distributes, Tony is the “World Pastor” of the Holy Alamo Christian Church in Southern California—with branches in Arkansas, Tennessee, Illinois and New York. We have a whole stack of his pamphlets, the combined value of which, with $1 added, would buy a cup of coffee in an average cafe. The most widely circulated is The Pope’s Secrets, a gung-ho attack on Catholi¬cism. While most evangelicals concur that a glut of false teaching emanates from Rome, few would agree with Alamo’s tactics for spreading the alarm. For example, one leaflet is headlined: “Did you know that the POPE and RONALD REAGAN are a couple of ANTICHRIST DEVILS and that they are selling us all down the drain?” Such language does not impress intelligent people.

Tony is best known, perhaps, for me really class western boots he manufactures. His second claim to fame relates to his bizarre actions following the death of Susan Alamo, his first wife (he has had 3 or 4, but more on that later), who died of cancer in May of 1982. She had publicly announced God was going to heal her and when He didn’t, Tony refused to bury her, claiming God would raise her from the dead. He gave up when God “just took away my grief for Sue and gave me a new love.”

That new love, whom he married two years after Susan died, was 42-year-old Birgitta Gyllenhammar from Sweden, a clothes designer who manufactured her own line under the label Birgitta. She left Tony the following year and the last we heard she was operating at least one boutique in Beverly Hills—she owned two when they married. His third wife was Elizabeth Caldwell Amrbein and they got into a big custody battle over her children by her ex-husband, Nick. When Tony married Wife #3, Wife #2 called him a “bigamist,” claiming they were still legally married, although she said she had been trying to get him to agree to a divorce ever since their separation. Alamo gave his standard explanation: it was all a Catholic conspiracy! Wife #3 has since divorced Tony and both Birgitta and Elizabeth charge him with being “a wife beater.”

Tony’s latest pamphlet is The Polygamists. The opening line says: “Anyone who would believe that polygamy, according to God’s Holy-Scripture, is dead, would believe that God is dead, and that the Bible is meaningless.” And that is just for starters!

Well, Tony, we’ll go on record as saying that from the beginning God planned “one man, one woman.” Anything else is a violation of His will and, like divorce, was only permitted in the Old Testament during certain periods because of man’s “hardness of heart.” As our Lord said, “Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female” (Matthew 19:4). Note the use of the singular: “male,” “female.” He did not make them “male” and “females”; it was not Adam and Eve, Mary, Rachel, Susan, Birgitta and Elizabeth. No, just Adam and Eve; one man, one woman. Not only so, “they are no more twain, but one flesh” (Vs.6). The first family was “a duality in unity.” Could Adam, Eve, Shirley, Geraldine, Janet, Doris and Margaret be one flesh, a duality in unity? Hardly. And the one husband was ordered to “cleave” to that one wife (Vs.5). Vine’s Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words declares of the Greek word kollao, translated cleave: “to join fast together, to glue, cement, is primarily said of metals and other materials.” How many women does Tony think should be glued, cemented to one man?

In the Genesis creation account God said, “I will make him an help meet for him” (2:18). The noted Hebrew scholar, Franz Julius Delitzsch, translated this phrase, “I will make him, a help of his like.” W. H. Griffith Thomas said it was literally, “a helper as his counter-part.” God did not offer to make a harem to assist Adam, merely one, exclusive wife.

In typical male chauvinist fashion, Tony only permits the men to take more wives, not the wives to take more husbands. Why? He says the man is the boss; since the fall the woman is “not equal to the man anymore, but is under subjection to her one and only husband. She is to be totally dominated, ruled through and by the godly man through the Word of God (positively no more equal rights, ladies).”

Shades of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young! After all, that’s the way Smith started out, getting “revelations” from God to “take more wives.” In Tony’s case, he says if you disagree with him you think God is dead and the Bible is meaningless. No, Tony, we don’t think God is dead or that His Word is anything but divinely inspired, inerrant and relevant for His people today. We’ll sum up this item by quoting Dr. Henry M. Morris: “Polygamy, concubinage, polyandry, easy divorce, adultery, promiscuity, and other distortions of the marriage covenant have permeated many cultures, but, as the Lord Jesus said: ‘From the beginning it was not so’ (Matthew 19:8).”

How many wives does Tony have now? Who knows? Remember, Birgitta called him a bigamist when he married Elizabeth. Going from bigamy to polygamy is a very short step. And why put out a book defending the practice if you “ain’t doin’” it? It is Joe Smith, deja vu!

QUOTES OF NOTE: British novelist Julie Burchill claims Madonna “looks like a whore and thinks like a pimp.” Very well said!…Zig Ziglar observed: “The average American reads only two new books each year. If you read just 20 minutes each day, you will read the equivalent of twenty 200-page books by year’s end!”

Southwest Times Record
June 4, 1994

Alamo takes Fifth about his personal life

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — Evangelist Tony Alamo repeatedly invoked the Fifth Amendment in response to government questions about his personal life.
Alamo was on the witness stand Thursday for the third day in his federal court trial on charges of falsifying his income tax return for 1985 and willfully failing to file for the years 1986, 1987 and 1988.

“You coerced several (women) into marrying you by saying you had a message from God that something very bad would happen if they didn’t marry you?” Justice Department lawyer Christopher Belcher asked.

Alamo responded by taking the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which protects citizens against self-incrimination by allowing them to refuse to testify against themselves.
He later did the same thing when asked whether he had threatened to throw the parents of one young woman out of the church unless they gave permission for their daughter to marry him.

He also invoked the Fifth Amendment when asked if he has had up to seven wives at a time in the last two years.

Alamo also denied child beating and arson accusations.

Alamo faces felony child abuse charges in California in the alleged beating of the son of a former member.
Belcher asked Alamo about a series of fires that occurred between 1990 and 1992 to Alamo buildings, specifically a fire at his home in Nashville, Tenn., in 1992.

“For sure, I don’t know anything about it,” Alamo replied.