2/3/10 – TG: Alamo doesn’t have to pay restitution yet, judge rules
Texarkana Gazette
February 3, 2010
By: Lynn LaRowe
Alamo doesn’t have to pay restitution yet, judge rules
A federal judge ruled Monday that Tony Alamo doesn’t have to pay restitution to five women he wed as children while an appeal is pending in his criminal case.
In a one-page opinion released Monday, U.S. District Judge Harry Barnes granted a defense request to have payment of $2.5 million to the five Jane Does listed as victims in Alamo’s federal indictment put on hold until the case is decided by the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals.
Alamo also doesn’t have to pay a $250,000 fine and $850 in court costs as the case moves through the appellate process.
The government recently filed a request to have Alamo immediately pay the restitution, fines and costs.
It argued that the religious leader and his followers have a history of hiding assets and avoiding court-ordered payments.
Properties connected to Alamo’s ministry are often placed in the names of followers and regularly transferred among them, the government contends.
Alamo’s defense lawyers, John Wesley Hall of Little Rock and Don Ervin of Houston, have yet to file a formal appeal brief in the case.
In a response to the government’s request to have Alamo’s court-ordered debt paid quickly, Hall and Ervin wrote that their client would refrain from transferring any assets while he waits to hear if he’ll get relief from his conviction from a higher court.
Alamo was sentenced to 175 years in federal prison in November. He was convicted by a jury in July on all 10 counts in a federal indictment accusing him of bringing young girls across state lines for sex.