1/6/09 – Alamo video focus of hearing Thursday
NWAnews
January 6, 2009
ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE
Alamo video focus of hearing Thursday
A judge has set a hearing for Thursday on the Arkansas Department of Human Service’s request to have a video recording of an interview with a 16-year-old member of the Tony Alamo Christian Ministries removed from the Internet.
The recording was made at the Children’s Advocacy Center in Texarkana, Texas, on Sept. 21, as part of an investigation into allegations that children in the ministry have been physically and sexually abused.
In the interview, the girl, who is now in foster care, denies that she had ever been abused. Last month, the video was posted on the Google Video Web site by the operator of the Web site, FirstAmendmentRadio. com.
At the hearing, the Human Services Department will ask Miller County Circuit Judge Jim Hudson to order the girl’s parents, Richard and Debra Ondrisek, to ask that the video be removed from the Internet. The department cites Arkansas Code 20-78-106, which requires that material compiled in children’s advocacy centers for sexual-abuse investigations be kept confidential.
Debra Ondrisek has declined to say whether she provided the video to the Web site.