Tony Alamo News

11/14/09 – TG: Alamo follower, Tommy Scarcello, faces allegations of bankruptcy fraud

Texarkana Gazette
November 11, 2009
By: Lynn LaRowe

Follower faces allegations of bankruptcy fraud

A bankruptcy court wants a high-ranking member of Tony Alamo Christian Ministries to produce financial and property documents by the end of the month.

Tommy Scarcello’s bankruptcy case was reopened last month amid allegations he may have committed fraud when he filed for Chapter 7 debt relief in the Eastern District of Oklahoma in September 2008.

Bankruptcy trustee Gerald Miller filed a motion Nov. 6 for a list of any transfers of money greater than $1,000 within five years of Scarcello’s bankruptcy filing.

The order also demands copies of tax returns from 2005, 2006 and 2007, copies of titles and liens to all vehicles Scarcello owns, copies of any financial statements issued within two years of bankruptcy filing, copies of statements from retirement accounts and copies of any accounts receivable owed to Scarcello.

Miller also wants to look at any bank statements from September 2006 to September 2008 for accounts on which Scarcello had signatory authority, any accounts for his business, Thomas Scarcello Warehousing, and any accounts he might have closed during that time period.

The motion also requests copies of all deeds and mortgages to property owned by Scarcello within five years of filing.

“If said property is no longer owned by the debtor, provide copies of conveyance instrument showing transfer of property,” the motion said.

During Tony Alamo’s criminal trial, past and current members testified that church associated property was often held in the names of followers. Records from the Miller County Tax Assessors Office show properties in Fouke, Ark., were sometimes sold for a dollar by one or more members to other members.

Miller also has an interest in court documents filed in a civil lawsuit accusing Scarcello and others of a scheme to sell Tempurpedic mattresses, pillows and slippers meant as donations to hurricane Katrina victims for a profit.

Proceedings in that case were put on hold when Scarcello and other defendants filed for bankruptcy.

The suit accuses Scarcello, Action Distributors, Jon Fitzgerald, Waste to Charity, Broco Supply Inc., Howard Hirsch, Nelson Silva and Close Out Surplus and Savings Inc. of participating in the mattress scam. A number of the donated goods were located in a warehouse in Booneville, Ark., owned by two of Alamo’s alleged wives, court documents indicate.

In a deposition Scarcello gave during pretrial proceedings in Tempurpedic’s suit, he repeatedly took the Fifth Amendment when asked about his finances.

“Where are your books and records Mr. Scarcello,” asks Daniel McGillycuddy of the New York law firm Bingham McCutchen in the deposition.

“I invoke my right to the Fifth Amendment,” Scarcello answers.

“What were your gross revenues last year Mr. Scarcello in your brokering business?” the lawyer asked.

Scarcello again responded with the Fifth Amendment.

“Who is the bookkeeper,” McGillicuddy asked Scarcello about a New Jersey brokerage business he once operated.

“I instruct the witness not to answer on the basis of Fifth Amendment privilege,” Scarcello’s attorney, Eric Lieberman of New York advised.

“Who is your bookkeeper presently, Mr. Scarcello,”

Scarcello again refuses to answer based on his right not to do so.

In the deposition, Scarcello denies knowing Bob Streit, another long time Alamo loyalist whose daughter, Angela Streit Morales, is an alleged Alamo wife, according to testimony in the deposition and testimony in Alamo’s criminal trial. Scarcello also waves off a close affiliation with Action Distributors, a trucking company that witnesses at Alamo’s trial testified is operated for the benefit of Alamo Ministries.

Scarcello took the Fifth again when asked what he did with $500,000 he was paid for some of the Tempurpedic products.

But Scarcello did speak when asked about Tony Alamo.

“He’s a man of God,” Scarcello said. “…We are living in the last days right now just before the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ and that we’re living in the worst time there ever was. We’re living in the fourth kingdom … and we’re living in this one-world structure, the one-world voice, one-world church directed by the Vatican that the Bible says is coming straight from Rome … the devil given power to … make everybody take a mark on their right hand or their forehead or they won’t be able to buy or sell.”

Scarcello was present for some of Alamo’s criminal trial but did not attend his sentencing Friday.

A hearing on Scarcello’s recently reopened bankruptcy case will be held in December.