1/01/10 – TG: Top 10 Stories of 2009: Tony Alamo guilty of sexual assaults
Texarkana Gazette
January 1, 2010
By: Lynn LaRowe
Top 10 Stories of 2009: Fouke religious leader guilty of sexual assaults
Tony Alamo tells reporters as he leaves the courthouse July 22, 2009, he doesn’t believe his ministry will die if he’s found guilty. “What happened to the church of the Lord Jesus Christ after they convicted him?” he said. The controversial evangelist was later convicted of bringing five young girls across state lines for sex.
Tony Alamo was found guilty of bringing young girls across state lines for sex and given a life sentence this year in Texarkana.
Alamo, whose given name is Bernie LaZar Hoffman, was sentenced on Friday, Nov. 13, to 175 years in prison by U.S. District Judge Harry Barnes.
He was found guilty by a jury of 12 Arkansans in July of all 10 counts listed in an indictment accusing him of bringing young girls across state lines for sex.
On Sept. 20, 2008, the FBI and Arkansas State Police executed search warrants on Tony Alamo Christian Ministries’ Fouke outpost.
During a two-week trial this summer, five women, known as Jane Does 1 through 5, described their lives as wives of the self-proclaimed prophet.
Jane Doe No. 2 was just 8 when she came to live in Alamo’s home. The others were minors also, some as young as 11.
As Barnes read the jury’s 10 guilty verdicts aloud one day in July, the Jane Does and other witnesses who’d testified on the government’s behalf hugged, clasped hands and wept.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Kyra Jenner, the lead prosecutor, said after court adjourned that a monster had been caged.
Alamo, 75, presently occupies a cell in a county jail in downtown Texarkana. He won’t be moved to a medical unit within the Federal Bureau of Prisons until after a restitution hearing Jan. 13. The government’s expert witness, a psychologist who focuses on sexual abuse victims, is expected to estimate the cost of physical and psychological treatment the Jane Does require for recovery.
Alamo’s defense team, Don Ervin of Houston, Jeff Harrelson of Texarkana and Phillip Kuhn of Florida, have been given copies of the expert’s report to aid them in their arguments.
Alamo was ordered by another federal judge to pay more than $1 million to Justin Miller and his family.
Miller was 12 in 1988 when he was beaten with a board at Alamo’s direction while being held down by three men. A crowd of Alamo loyalists watched but Alamo gave his orders from a bungalow on the California compound not far from where the boy was beaten.
In 1991 the IRS and labor authorities seized properties the group owned in Alma, Ark., as recompense for unpaid taxes and wages.
Alamo was on the run for a couple of years before being convicted of tax evasion and sentenced to time in federal prison. It was while Alamo was being housed at the Federal Correctional Institution in Texarkana that a group of his flock set up house in the nearby town of Fouke.
Witnesses at Alamo’s criminal trial in July testified that it was several years after Susan Alamo’s death in 1988 that Alamo began espousing the view that polygamy was sanctioned by the Bible and that young girls should marry at puberty.
Observers wonder about the future of Alamo devotees.
Current members staunchly pledge continued loyalty and a fiercely held belief that their pastor is innocent.
Alamo himself rebuked officials and the media in an interview from his cell in July following his conviction. He maintains that the Vatican controls news agencies and the government.
Alamo’s lawyers are appealing his conviction. In a motion for a new trial, Alamo asserted that the jury wasn’t qualified to judge him because they were not his religous equals.
Barnes rejected the notion.