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6/19/13 – TG: Hearing to address claims to properties of Alamo Ministries

Texarkana Gazette
June 19, 2013
By: Lynn LaRowe – Texarkana Gazette

Hearing to address claims to properties of Alamo Ministries

A federal judge will conduct a hearing next month to address ownership claims to six properties associated with Tony Alamo Christian Ministries.

In April, U.S. Magistrate Judge Barry Bryant ruled six properties in Fort Smith, Ark., can be sold to partially satisfy a $30-million judgment Tony Alamo owes to two men raised in Alamo’s controversial group.

A jury found Alamo guilty of battery, conspiracy and outrage.

After Bryant granted the writ, Alamo followers began entering claims of ownership to the properties.

Since then, Carter has filed a motion seeking additional properties in Miller and Sebastian counties and the U.S. government has filed notice it intends to seize properties as well. Alamo was ordered to pay each of the five victims listed in his federal indictment $500,000 in restitution. He was found guilty by a jury in July 2009 of bringing the women he had wed as children across state lines for sex. Alamo is currently serving a 175-year term at a federal prison in Tuscon, Ariz.

The hearing Bryant scheduled for the middle of July concerns only the six properties listed in Carter’s first writ of execution.

“Any individual who has filed a claim to any of these properties should be present and prepared to establish his or her claim at this hearing,” Bryant’s order states. “Failure to attend this hearing may result in a waiver of an individual’s claim to the listed property.”

The properties at issue include a gym building, the Alamo Ministries Fort Smith church building, a warehouse, a restaurant and parking lot and a single-family home.

In an earlier ruling, Bryant found that the properties, though held in the names of Alamo followers, are actually under Alamo’s control and operate for his benefit and profit.

The followers asserting ownership claims allege they or Alamo Ministries truly own the properties.

Next month’s hearing will not address a second writ Carter filed in the two men’s case seeking to sell properties in Texarkana, Fouke and Fort Smith, nor will it address a motion recently filed by the government in Alamo’s criminal case seeking to seize 27 properties so that they can be sold to satisfy the restitution Alamo owes to the victims in his criminal case.

In: 2013, Breaking News

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