5/7/13 – AP: Stepdaughter of convicted evangelist asserts claim to properties in lawsuit by abused youths
The Republic
May 7, 2013
The Associated Press
Stepdaughter of convicted evangelist asserts claim to properties in lawsuit by abused youths
TEXARKANA, Arkansas — A stepdaughter of imprisoned evangelist Tony Alamo has filed a claim for $500,000 that she says he owes her, further complicating the efforts of attorneys for two young men who were abused in Alamo’s ministry as children to enforce a $30 million judgment they were awarded.
Christhiaon Coie filed court papers Friday seeking to enforce an award from 1995 in Crawford County, which is tied to Alamo’s removal of her mother’s body from a mausoleum prior to its seizure to settle a tax nonpayment judgment and a separate civil judgment in an abuse case. Coie was a daughter of Susan Alamo by a prior marriage.
Alamo, 78, is in a federal prison in Marion, Illinois, serving a 175-year sentence for transporting young girls across state lines for sex.
The Texarkana Gazette reports (http://is.gd/p0puXF ) that Coie won a $100,000 judgment against her stepfather in Crawford County in 1995. She claims in her court filing that, with interest, she should be paid $500,000.
A judge ordered the seizure of a number of businesses that were run by Tony Alamo Christian Ministries so the judgment awarded the two young men could be paid.
Ownership of the businesses is being settled.
Alamo’s lawyer, John Rogers of Clayton, Missouri, filed claims last week stating the businesses are jointly owned by 24 members of Alamo’s ministry. That claim was rejected on grounds that ownership of businesses by unincorporated entities isn’t allowed under Arkansas law. There are also individuals within the ministry listed as owners.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Barry Bryant last month issued an order to clear the way for sale of six properties in Fort Smith that are associated with Alamo. A hearing is scheduled later this month on some ownership claims.
Texarkana lawyer David Carter, who represents the two young men, says the ministry members have shuffled property ownership.
“Most of the claims filed thus far are made by ‘members’ of Tony Alamo’s ‘ministry,'” Carter said in an email to the newspaper. “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.”
Susan Alamo died in 1982. A group of loyalists to Alamo delivered her body to a Van Buren funeral home in 1998, under order by authorities to return the corpse.
Information from: Texarkana Gazette, http://www.texarkanagazette.com