Tony Alamo News

5/7/13 – TG: Alamo’s stepdaughter: She’s owed $500,000 from 1995 judgment

Texarkana Gazette
May 7, 2013
By: Lynn LaRowe – Texarkana Gazette

Alamo’s stepdaughter: She’s owed $500,000 from 1995 judgment

Original award stems from case involving location of mother’s body

Imprisoned evangelist Tony Alamo’s stepdaughter has filed notice that she has an interest in properties a federal judge has ruled can be sold to partially satisfy a $30 million judgment.

Christhiaon Coie filed notice Friday of prior claim in Spencer Ondrisek’s and Seth Calagna’s case.

Coie is the late Susan Alamo’s daughter from a prior marriage.

The judgment by a federal jury in a civil suit against Tony Alamo awarded Ondrisek and Calagna compensation for battery, outrage and conspiracy. The $30 million judgment remains unpaid.

Last month, U.S. Magistrate Judge Barry Bryant issued an order permitting sale of six properties in Fort Smith associated with Alamo.

Coie was awarded a $100,000 judgment against Tony Alamo in Crawford County in 1995.

She filed suit after her mother’s body was disinterred from a heart-shaped mausoleum on Alamo Ministries property in Crawford County. Susan Alamo’s body was removed in advance of the mausoleum and property being seized by federal authorities as recompense for unpaid taxes and an unpaid judgment in another federal suit involving the public beating of a 12-year-old boy on ministry property in 1988 in California.

Alamo was sentenced to a six-year term in federal prison for tax evasion in 1994.

It is unknown where Susan Alamo’s body was for seven years after it was removed from the mausoleum in 1991.

Susan Alamo died in 1982.

In the days following her death, loyal Alamo followers reportedly prayed nonstop around her lifeless body in hopes that their pleas to God would bring her back to life.

Crawford County Chancery Judge Jim Spears’ 1995 order included a $100,000 judgment against Tony Alamo in favor of Coie and an order that Alamo be held in the Crawford County jail upon his release from federal prison until Susan Alamo’s remains were produced.

Spears found Tony Alamo guilty of outrage.

“Once a body has been entombed, no one, not even a surviving spouse, may disinter or remove the corpse except as provided by law. No permit was obtained, nor order of the court sought for this purpose,” Spears wrote in his 1995 order.

He noted that Tony Alamo directed the removal of Susan Alamo’s body.

Spears wrote that Tony Alamo owed Coie a “sacred trust” in regard to her mother’s remains.

“She is owed the courtesy of information concerning her mother’s body,” Spears wrote. “A denial of this is outrageous conduct that any person knows would cause much grief and anguish to a child.”

Spears ordered that Tony Alamo begin serving an indeterminate term in the Crawford County jail for his civil contempt.

“The civil contempt differs from his criminal prosecution in that Mr. Alamo holds the key to the jailhouse in his possession,” Spears’ order states.

In 1998, Alamo loyalists delivered Susan Alamo’s body in a sealed casket to a funeral home in Van Buren, Ark. Dental records were used to determine the corpse was in fact Susan Alamo.

Now, Coie is asserting an interest in four of the six Fort Smith properties Bryant ruled could be sold to partially satisfy the $30 million judgment for Ondrisek and Calagna.

In documents filed on Coie’s behalf in Sebastian County,Ark., in 2009, Coie asserts an interest in other properties associated with Alamo, as well. The 2009 filing states that interest accumulated since the 1995 award brought the total at that time to more than $500,000.

Coie is not the only person who has filed notice of interest in the six Fort Smith properties.

Last week, Alamo’s lawyer, John Rogers of Clayton, Mo., filed claims of joint ownership on behalf of 24 ministry members.

On Monday, Clayton [Rogers] filed notice of joint ownership on behalf of nine other members. Notices of actual ownership were filed by Rogers last week on behalf of three members whose names are listed on property records for several of the properties.

At a hearing April 2, Clayton [Rogers] argued that the properties are actually owned by all members of the ministry jointly.

Bryant rejected Clayton’s [Roger’s] argument, citing Arkansas law that does not allow property ownership by an unincorporated group of people.

Bryant’s order states that Alamo controlled the properties and made decisions concerning them without input from anyone else in the group.

Texarkana lawyer David Carter, who filed suit on behalf of Ondrisek and Calagna, and Irving, Texas, lawyer Neil Smith, describe the group’s practice of shuffling property ownership regularly among members as a quitclaim scheme.

“Most of the claims filed thus far are made by ‘members’ of Tony Alamo’s ‘ministry,’” Carter said in an email. “It is a continuation of the shell game directed by Alamo and implemented by his followers. We look forward to the hearing, at which these folks can explain the stacks of undated and backdated deeds they used to pass ‘title’ to these properties amongst themselves like hot potatoes.”

Bryant has scheduled a hearing for later this month to address the ownership claims.

Alamo is serving a 175-year federal prison sentence for bringing women he wed as children and lived with polygamously across state lines for sex.