6/3/12 – TG: Lawsuit berates Alamo ‘ brides.’ Plaintiffs: Women participated willingly in polygamy, child porn production
Texarkana Gazette
June 3, 2012
By: Lynn LaRowe
Defendants in a civil lawsuit seeking damages for former child brides of imprisoned evangelist Tony Alamo accuse the women of willingly practicing polygamy and participating in the production of child pornography.
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” said Texarkana lawyer David Carter, who filed the suit in 2010. “These particular defendants are actually contending that Alamo’s ‘brides,’ who became his sexual slaves when they were as young as eight years old, knowingly and willing engaged in polygamy. Even worse, they claim that the girls wrongfully engaged in creating child pornography because they were undressed and photographed by their pastor, who has since been convicted of being their molester. These counterclaims are insulting, and fly in the face of laws designed to protect children from abusive situations.”
Six former Alamo wives and a former member who alleges that she was being groomed to be a wife when she escaped from the Tony Alamo Ministries compound in Fouke, Ark., are suing, with Carter’s help, several high-ranking ministry members, ministry-run businesses and a security firm that once provided guards to patrol the perimeter of the Fouke compound.
Some of the defendants filed counterclaims alleging that the plaintiffs’ parents and Tony Alamo should be at least partly liable if the case is decided in favor of the plaintiffs.
In recent court filings, Texarkana lawyer Bob Veon, who represents Robert Gilmore, owner of RG & Associates Security, names the six plaintiffs as counter-defendants who should be held partially accountable for their suffering.
Alamo was convicted in 2009 of bringing five of the plaintiffs across state lines for sex and sentenced to 175 years in federal prison. He is serving his sentence at a federal lockup in Illinois.
At trial, witnesses testified that Alamo had sex with “spiritual wives,” some of whom he married as children. The wives and other members were beaten, forced to fast, denied education and threatened with eternal damnation, witnesses testified.
In the security firm’s response to the plaintiffs’ fifth amended complaint, Veon denies that the company’s guards kept members from leaving Alamo’s Fouke compound. Veon also denies that a guard reported to Robert Gilmore, owner of the firm, that he’d witnessed an underage girl performing a sexual act on a male adult.
Veon’s response on behalf of Gilmore also denies that Gilmore published any untrue statements about the plaintiffs.
“Even after federal and state law enforcement officers had raided ‘Tony’s House’ on suspicion of child abuse and child pornography, Robert Gilmore penned letters of support for TACM disclaiming any abuse of underage girls at the compound. He and (Robert Gilmore’s security service) never reported any abuse or suspicion of abuse to authorities and remain supporters of defendants,” the complaint alleges. “By authoring such letters, (Robert Gilmore’s security service) and Gilmore have portrayed plaintiffs in a false light and have engaged in libelous statements, which have damaged plaintiffs.”
In Gilmore’s counterclaims recently penned by Veon, Gilmore alleges that the plaintiffs willingly participated in a polygamous relationship, “which included persons who had not consented to the relationship”; and that the plaintiffs created child pornography, falsely imprisoned each other, restrained and/or hit one another with paddles and boards and failed to protect others from the conduct of which they themselves complain.
Veon did not respond to a request for comment Friday.
Veon filed the response on Gilmore’s behalf in April. Advantage Food Group, one of the church business defendants, filed a response penned by Texarkana lawyer Gary Nutter, which makes the same claims against the plaintiffs as Veon’s response for Gilmore. Nutter was out of the office Friday and could not be reached for comment. The case is assigned to U.S. District Judge Susan Hickey in the Western District of Arkansas, Texarkana division. Jury selection is scheduled for April 2013.