alamo-arrest-mugshot0908

7/14/09 – AP: Prosecutor: Girls in ministry feared Tony Alamo’s call

Charleston Daily Mail
July 14, 2009
JON GAMBRELL

Prosecutor: Girls in ministry feared Alamo’s call

The young girls in evangelist Tony Alamo’s ministry say they came to fear every time the telephone rang.

Each call offered a new chance that the 74-year-old minister wanted them to come to his large home to hear God’s message. Their loyal parents pushed them out the doors, saying Alamo’s home offered comforts like television and a swimming pool, luxuries unimaginable in the strictly controlled lives of his followers.

But prosecutors say the girls knew that Alamo carried only one message – for those as young as 8 to “marry” him and subject themselves to his sexual assaults.

Prosecutors offered a stark portrayal of life in Alamo’s ministry on Tuesday after U.S. District Judge Harry F. Barnes swore in a jury of nine men and three women.

Lawyers for Alamo, who is charged with taking underage girls across state lines for sex, argued that the alleged victims traveled across the country to further the outreach and business interests of a “bona fide religious group” that the government targeted out of its own prejudices.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Clay Fowlkes told jurors that a 15-year-old girl who left the Alamo ministries in 2006 told the FBI that the evangelist “married” her at age 8. She told agents Alamo exchanged wedding vows and rings with her and sexually assaulted her for the first time before she turned 10, Fowlkes said.

Alamo summoned another 15-year-old girl to his home in 1994 by telephone, authorities said, then told her parents that God instructed him to marry her. Fowlkes said the parents consented and Alamo repeatedly sexually assaulted the girl, taking her on trips to West Virginia and Tennessee as he prepared for a trial on federal tax-evasion charges.

Another call came in 1998, when Alamo married a 14-year-old girl, Fowlkes said.

In 2002, Alamo summoned three underage girls into his bedroom and shut the door, telling them God wanted him to marry two of them, Fowlkes said. Alamo later sexually assaulted two of those girls he “married,” one 11, the other 14, the prosecutor said.

The girls also traveled on Alamo’s orders to other states, Fowlkes said.

One of those girl’s parents encouraged her to marry Alamo, saying his home had access to better food, movies and a swimming pool, Fowlkes said. But the evangelist controlled every aspect of the girls’ lives from what they ate to who spoke with them, the prosecutor said.

“When the FBI began to pull on that thread, it began to unravel the elaborate facade the defendant had carefully woven around himself,” Fowlkes said.

Don Ervin, who is leading Alamo’s defense team, told jurors to focus on the facts. He said all the girls’ travel came as part of the ministry’s efforts to give people “decent lives for themselves.”

“This investigation, this prosecution was fueled by prejudice the government and law enforcement have against Tony Alamo’s church because of its practices,” Ervin said.

A federal judge revoked the tax-exempt status for Alamo’s ministries in the 1980s after investigations by the Internal Revenue Service and the U.S. Labor Department. After the hearing, Ervin said the government couldn’t decide what represented a real church.

“They’ve done a lot of good for people,” Ervin said. “The IRS doesn’t control who is a bona fide church, they just control who has to pay taxes and who doesn’t.”

Alamo, whose ministry grew into a multimillion industry on the backs of his followers, was convicted of tax evasion charges in 1994. He served four years in prison after the IRS said he owed the government $7.9 million. The evangelist has blamed the recent charges against him as the work of a Vatican-led conspiracy.

In 1991, Alamo was acquitted of threatening a federal judge – a case that fueled an extraordinary increase in security efforts for his current trial. Uniformed U.S. Homeland Security officers walked outside around the courthouse, while U.S. marshals filled the hallways and manned two metal detectors.

Alamo, gaunt and pale, sat quietly for much of the hearing, wearing a grey suit and dark sunglasses. He could be heard correcting his lawyer’s summary of the ministry’s history during opening arguments.

Alamo faces a 10-count federal indictment. If convicted, he faces 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine on each count. He remains held without bond until the end of his trial, scheduled to last two weeks.

In: 2009 - (Trial year)

| Back to Top |
Want to help?



Click the button!
Why?

Post A Comment

Please note: All comments are moderated. There is no need to resubmit your comment. Please submit a well thought out post with proper punctuation and spelling, so that it can be reviewed and posted promptly (as space allows).

Time limit is exhausted. Please reload CAPTCHA.