Alamo was charged was violating the Fair Labor Standards Act, went to court, then countersued all the way to the Supreme Court. Twice married and with a daughter, she came to Hollywood and attempted to become an actress. In six months, when she didnt rise from the dead, Tony finally buried her. Claiming resurrection was imminent, hed kept Susan displayed in the compound for months before interring her body. He sent their record to all my friends in Los Angeles to make me mad. Pebbles was 12. Gordon, Ronald J. She said she did not plan to leave the country, although Amrhein thinks she and Alamo and the children were about to take a cruise on the Queen Elizabeth II. Some days are easier than others.. The full weight of the crimes hed committed was finally coming to light, and in 2014, a judge from Miller County, Arkansas, ruled in a case brought by seven ex-cult members. She threw Alamo out of her Los Angeles home last fall after he broke a 200 year old statue. Ive been asked to go to France and design clothes there. His motions allege that Spears cannot objectively judge the case because he was endorsed by local newspaper editor Jack Moseley. Buchanan, Susy. Acting upon reports of child abuse, on March 25, 1988, sheriffs deputies raided the Saugus, California, compound in order to reunite three boys with their natural fathers; the fathers had been members of the Arkansas compound but had been excommunicated. Tony Alamo Christian Ministries. The program also charges Tony Alamo with being a child abuser, polygamist and pedophile. He was working as a music promoter. Susan and Tony Alamo met in a Hollywood Boulevard bar in the 1960s when Susan was pressing her then-teen-age daughter to become a kid performer and he was a self-styled promoter whose real name was Bernie L. Hoffman, Coie recalled last week. Georgia cop killed on first shift in retaliation for an arrest hour earlier, investigators say, Remains Found And Believed To Be Man Reported Missing In May 2021, Brother Accused Of Murder, Subscribe to Front Page Detectives Newsletter. And when she was 17, he took her virginity after making her one of the three "wives" he had at the time. When Alamo saw Amrhein at the hearing the evangelist appeared upset. The grounds included a school, a printshop, a tabernacle and a workshop for producing clothing and garments. Church members branched out to begin small businesses within the nearby community of Alma, Arkansas. The civil contempt differs from his criminal incarceration in that Mr. Alamo holds the key to the jailhouse in his possession, Spears wrote. Its no wonder you get rich when you dont pay your bills. He took all my jewelry and gave it to Elizabeth. Both Tony and Susan were impressive on the stage: he with eye-catching outfits and musical ability, she with fiery sermons and deep faith. The Arkansas compound had much in common with Jonestown, the South American outpost run by Jim Jones that resulted in 909 deaths by cyanide poisoning on Nov. 18, 1978. Much of the information on Alamos early, pre-conversion life is spurious at best, on account of Alamos constant exaggerations of his importance and/or sinfulness. Born Bernie Hoffman, the boy from Missouri wasnt an average preacher. He's a convicted tax evader and a flamboyant evangelist who once ran what authorities called a multimillion-dollar, Saugus-based cult. He was heard on over a dozen radio stations in the U.S. and more in Africa, Sri Lanka, and the Philippines. Alamo has fathered three children by different women who live in his home as secretaries. They made a record together, and they cant sing. But the church began to falter in 1985, when the Internal Revenue Service stripped it of its tax-exempt status, charging it was nothing more than a front for Alamo-owned businesses. Encyclopedia of Arkansas For about a decade, beginning in the mid-1990s, Amy and Pebbles lived as child brides of Alamo and were regularly starved, beaten and raped. The Alamo Christian Foundation was an American cult founded in 1969 by Christian evangelist Tony Alamo and one of his wives, Susan Alamo. (AP) Amy Eddy and Pebbles Rodriguez are speaking out about how they were controlled by apocalyptic cult leader Tony Alamo in an upcoming documentary. It lost on appeal to the United States Court of Appeals in 1999. Spears also rejected Alamos $3.5-million counterclaim that Coie had slandered and defamed him. By the time the church was at its height in 1980, they had their own television ministry and were bringing in tens of thousands of dollars each week. Online at https://www.villagevoice.com/2008/05/13/the-barely-legal-empire-of-tony-alamo/ (accessed February 23, 2023). Amy and Pebbles were finally freed from their torture in 2008 when Alamo was arrested and charged with 10 counts of interstate transportation of minors for illicit sexual purposes. Lydia and Tabor are no longer in associated with the group or Tony Alamo. After a decade of building the church, Susan and Tony moved everyone to Dyer, Arkansas, just outside Fort Smith near the Oklahoma border. Alamo quickly declared bankruptcy, and his related businesses collapsed. Communal living was a staple of the Music Square Church. Now Tony Alamo is also a grave robberat least in the eyes of an Arkansas judge, who has ordered him to lay to rest his wifes missing 13-year-old corpse. The Alamos were multi-millionaires by the time Susan died, although their followers were often forced to scrounge through dumpsters for food, according to The Encyclopedia of Arkansas. She was born four and a half years before Black Friday, and the Great Depression dealt her already poor family another blow. It would be three more years before Alamo followers would finally deliver Susan Alamos remains to Tulsa, Oklahoma, for proper burial under Coies supervision. Alamo Mansion in Disrepair, Entered Now on a Dare. Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, April 9, 2017, pp, 1A, 9A. In 1975, the Alamos purchased land in Dyer, near Alma, and there established the main branch of the Music Square Church, which later was called the Holy Alamo Christian Church Consecrated before its present name was adopted. Additional support provided by the Arkansas Humanities Council. [20], Alamo died on May 2, 2017, while he was in custody at the Federal Medical Center, Butner in Butner, North Carolina. Alamo was convicted in 2009 on 10 counts for taking young girls, including a 9-year-old, across Arkansas state lines to have sex with them, the AP reports. Siege of the Alamos. People Weekly, June 13, 1983, pp. In addition, the judgment against Alamo showed him owing another $5 million to former church members for unpaid work. Amrhein said he suspected his former wife might flee the country to avoid the custody hearing in West Virginia next week. Alamo says he married Amrhein in December. In 2019, the American television channel Sundance TV broadcast the four-part miniseries Ministry of Evil: The Twisted Cult of Tony Alamo, based on the lives of Tony and Susan Alamo. Pre-European Exploration, Prehistory through 1540, European Exploration and Settlement, 1541 through 1802, Louisiana Purchase through Early Statehood, 1803 through 1860, Civil War through Reconstruction, 1861 through 1874, Post-Reconstruction through the Gilded Age, 1875 through 1900, Early Twentieth Century, 1901 through 1940, World War II through the Faubus Era, 1941 through 1967, Divergent Prosperity and the Arc of Reform, 19682022, https://www.villagevoice.com/2008/05/13/the-barely-legal-empire-of-tony-alamo/, Divergent Prosperity and the Arc of Reform (19682022). The assistant said there were many Scriptural reasons why they divorced. In 2007, the Southern Poverty Law Center listed the Tony Alamo Christian Ministries as a hate group, citing its anti-Catholic literature and rhetoric. T he imprisoned Evangelist preacher Tony Alamo, who sexually abused young girls he considered to be his wives, has died after serving more than seven years of a 175-year prison sentence,. One of the ex-communicated fathers also claimed Alamo had embezzled up to $100,000 in church funds from their trucking company. [11], In 1976, the church relocated to Dyer, Arkansas, where Susan had grown up. . Donations made to the CALS Foundation are tax-deductible for United States federal income tax purposes. 1A, 6A. The girls grew up in Fouke, Arkansas, where they lived on a compound. Lydia Unofficial wife of Tony Alamo. Arkansas authorities report that Alamo (born Bernie Lazar Hoffman) died while in custody at the Federal Medical Center in. This is so perverse.. Updated. Like a cheap carnival act, Coie recalled last week, he kept it on display in an open casket, telling church followers that Susan Alamo would rise from the dead. After he hooked up with Susan, his ambition, combined with her knowledge of Pentecostal life, along with the burgeoning pro-Jesus counterculture movement of the mid-1960s, resulted runaway success. Guilty Alamo Hears Bye, Bye outside Court. Arkansas Democrat-Gazette,July 25, 2009, pp. [1][2] The Alamo Ministries posted a notice of his death on its website's homepage, but it has not posted a notice of succession nor has it stated what its future plans are. The Alamos promoted UFOs as real and convinced followers to turn over their salaries, work long hours and prepare for the inevitable End Times. Eddy was 14 and Rodriguez just 12 when they. Magazines, Or create a free account to access more articles, Christian Cult Leader and Child Sex Abuser Tony Alamo Dies in Federal Custody. But she died a hard death and what she did is between her and God, and what hes done is so apart from anything human, anything decent. Nine years his senior, Edith Horn, a two-time divorce who already had a daughter, had moved to Hollywood to become an actress but ended up supporting herself partly by scamming churches into believing her to be a missionary in need of money. In 1984, Tony Alamo married what was either his fourth or sixth wife, as there have been claims he was married four times before he wed Susan. He was walking down the hallway in his black regalia and five-inch elevator shoes, Amrhein recalls. She was arrested as she went to pick up her passport. Widely regarded as a cult, Tony Alamo Christian Ministries was at the center of a number of lawsuits and government actions, and its leader was jailed on a variety of charges, including income tax evasion, the theft of his late wifes body, and taking underage girls across state lines for sex. New congregants signed on, then the church transported them to a rural location of Agua Dulce, California, about an hour northeast, for a hot meal and a sermon. He still hasnt paid me for the clothes he bought from my store in December 1984. They were even told who they were going to marry: the 62-year-old leader of their apocalyptic group. He lost, and would soon lose his tax-exempt status as the lawsuits piled up and dragged on through the 1980s. I knew how he thinks, and what he might do, she said. The only thing thats ungodly is if you have a statue of another God., I tried to make the marriage work, Miss Gyllenhammar said. For instance, as an Amazon Associate, Religion News Blog earns from qualifying purchases. I was at a party not long ago with Julio Iglesias and Elizabeth Taylor. The next raid wouldnt just be the feds and it wouldnt be a pesky tax problem. You can find out more and change our default settings with Cookies Settings. Nickys birthday is on January 4, and he was staying with me for a few days before then. From his cell at the federal maximum-security prison in Florence, Colo., Alamo has not only filed an appeal of Spears ruling but also is seeking a new trial without Spears as its judge. 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