5/20/13 – ADG: Filing seeks Alamo properties *** COMMENTS***
Arkansas Democrat Gazette
May 20, 2013
By ANDY DAVIS ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE
Filing seeks Alamo properties
Two men who won a $30 million judgment against evangelist Tony Alamo have added a dozen properties – including six that prosecutors also have asked a judge to seize – to the list of properties they are seeking to auction off to satisfy the judgment.
Spencer Ondrisek and Seth Calagna won the judgment in a lawsuit claiming that Alamo, now 78, ordered them to be beaten and forced them to fast while they were children and members of the ministry.
In a court filing in February, they asked a judge to order the seizure of six Fort Smith properties, including five buildings and a parking lot, to satisfy the judgment.
On Tuesday, the men asked U.S. Magistrate Judge Barry Bryant to order the seizure of a dozen additional properties, including Alamo’s house and the church building in Fouke.
The properties listed in Tuesday’s request also include three other houses and a gym at the Fouke complex, a house in Texarkana and a warehouse, house, truck shop, apartment complex and playground in Fort Smith.
Six of the properties – Alamo’s house, two of the other Fouke houses, and the Texarkana and Fort Smith houses – are also being sought by federal prosecutors in separate cases.
In court filings, also on Tuesday, prosecutors said Alamo used the six properties to facilitate the sexual abuse of five young girls, whom he was convicted of taking across state lines for sex.
Alamo was sentenced to 175 years in prison in the case in 2009. He was also fined $250,000 and ordered to pay $500,000 in restitution to each of his accusers, who said Alamo took them to be his “wives” at young ages.
W. David Carter of Texarkana, Texas, an attorney for Ondrisek and Calagna, said Wednesday that he would likely confer with prosecutors about their request.
“I suspect everyone’s goal in the end is to see that Alamo’s victims are compensated,” he said. “To the extent there is overlap between our different actions, I believe we will cooperate with the government and resolve any inconsistencies.”
A hearing on Ondrisek and Calagna’s February request for the seizure of the six Fort Smith properties is set for May 30.
Western District of Arkansas U.S. Attorney Conner Eldridge and Alamo’s attorney, John Rogers of Clayton, Mo., didn’t return calls seeking comment Wednesday.
May 21st, 2013 at 5:57 am
When everything goes well for Tony, he gives himself the praise (and God too). When things go wrong, it’s his followers’ fault. If another preacher was undergoing what he’s been undergoing, he would undoubtedly accuse that preacher of sin and ungodliness. But since it’s himself, it’s either persecution or his followers’ fault. WAKE UP TACM!
May God deliver Tony’s followers from year after year of abuse! If you only knew what it feels like to serve only Jesus whose yoke is easy and burden light! You can tell a tree by it’s fruit. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance-against such there is no law. (Galatians 5:22-23). The law is for the lawless. TA is not being persecuted and it’s nobody’s fault but his own.