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AvailableCanyon Country, CA
Holy Alamo Christian Church
2.Toni Alamo
Crows Landing, CA
Modesto, CA
Creative Dairies Llc
North Sedan Dairy Llc
Creative Dairies, Llc
North Sedan Dairy, Llc
3.Tony Alamo
Canyon Country, CA
Tony & Susan Alamo Foundation, Inc
4.Tony Alamo
Twentieth Century Holiness Tabernacle Church, Inc
5.Tony Alamo
Santa Clarita, CA
Tony & Susan Alamo Foundation
6.Tony Alamo
Santa Clarita, CA
Tony And Susan Alamo Foundation Inc
7.Tony Po Alamo
AvailableAlma, AR
Tony & Susan Alamo Foundation
Tony And Susan Alamo Foundation
8.Tony Alamo
Nashville, TN
The American Association Of Nondenominational Ch
9.Tony Alamo
Santa Clarita, CA
Tony And Susan Alamo Foundation Inc
Alamo once owned a Nashville, Tenn., clothing store that catered to celebrities desiring his elaborately decorated jean jackets. His home in Dyer included a heart-shaped swimming pool, but followers who lived on the grounds kept sleeping bags in meeting rooms.
In a number of interviews with the media, Alamo has underscored his belief that, according to the bible, a girl becomes a woman at puberty, no matter how young. He said he also believes that a youngster is permitted to be married if she is able to conceive and deliver a child. But Alamo has denied that his church operates under such terms.
"I am not the one that sets the time," Alamo said in an interview with CNN last year. "That means when a woman is able to conceive and have a child, she is an adult and she could be married."
But in court on Tuesday, Fowlkes told jurors that a 15-year-old girl, who left the Alamo ministries in 2006, told the FBI that Alamo married her at age eight. The girl told agents Alamo exchanged wedding vows and rings with her and first sexually assaulted her before she turned 10, Fowlkes said.
Alamo summoned another 15-year-old girl to his home in 1994 by telephone, authorities said, then telling her parents that God instructed him to marry her. Fowlkes said the parents consented and Alamo repeatedly sexually assaulted the girl, taking her on trips to West Virginia and Tennessee as he prepared for a trial on federal tax-evasion charges.
Another similar call came in 1998, when Alamo married a 14-year-old girl, Fowlkes said. In 2002, Alamo summoned three underage girls into his bedroom and shut the door, telling them God wanted him to marry two of them, Fowlkes said. Alamo later sexually assaulted two of those girls he married, one 11, the other 14, the prosecutor said.
One of those girl's parents encouraged her to marry Alamo, saying his home had access to better food, television privileges, movies and a swimming pool, Fowlkes said. But the evangelist controlled every aspect of the girls' lives from what they ate to who spoke with them, the prosecutor said.
"When the FBI began to pull on that thread, it began to unravel the elaborate facade the defendant had carefully woven around himself," Fowlkes said.
Don Ervin, who is leading Alamo's defense team, told jurors to focus on the facts. He said all the girls' travel came as part of the ministry's efforts to give people "decent lives for themselves."
"This investigation, this prosecution was fueled by prejudice the government and law enforcement have against Tony Alamo's church because of its practices," Ervin said.
A federal judge revoked the tax-exempt status for Alamo's ministries in the 1980s after investigations by the Internal Revenue Service and the U.S. Labor Department. After the hearing, Ervin said the government couldn't decide what represented a real church.
"They've done a lot of good for people," Ervin said. "The IRS doesn't control who is a bona fide church, they just control who has to pay taxes and who doesn't."
"I don't know when girls reach puberty. Most of them around 10, 11, 12, 13, 14," he said during the interview. "God inseminated Mary at the age of around 10 to 12. Should we get him for having sex?"
Once Alamo "married" a girl, Jeanne says he used her to fulfill his sexual desires. "Tony Alamo had up to 13 wives. About, I would say, half were minors, and he had had sex with every single one of us," she says. "He preferred the younger ones."
Farr wasn’t given the opportunity to give victim impact testimony at Alamo’s sentencing because she wasn’t named in his indictment.
“I would have said, not to him but for all that could hear, ‘I wonder who I would have been,’” Farr considered. “I don’t want to use the word robbed … but I feel I could have made such a difference had I been able to find out who I was and what I was good at.
“I didn’t get to appreciate what it was to be an American,” she said. “I was born in the United States of America but I didn’t know what freedom was until I left Tony’s house.”
Farr, born and raised in the “cult,” had never been alone in the outside world.
“You’re leery of men. You’ve never been allowed to be around them before,” she said. “All the people you should be able to go to for help, police, you are taught to fear. They’re all out to get you.”
She was told Alamo was kicking her out of the group and that she could not stay with her mother.
“I was told I could go to juvenile detention or find somewhere to go,” Farr said. “I was given $50.”
Farr said her family had once lived in Chicago, so she chose that as her destination. The isolated life she’d lived left her with little understanding of society and a fear of those among whom she now existed.
“At 15, I had to support myself. I was working two jobs, going to school four hours a day, sleeping two hours a night, it was crazy,” she recalled.
While in Alamo’s house Farr said she had become accustomed to laboring long hours with little sleep and virtually no opportunities for relaxation or entertainment.
“I had to be 30 at 15, but in so many ways I was like a little child,” Farr said.
Q Didn’t she?
A She lived there on and off several different times though.
Q She was 11-years old when she moved into the defendant’s residence; didn’t she?
A That’s possible one of the times.
Q Ms. Alamo, didn’t you notice that the girls who were moving into the defendant’s residence, the same residence you occupied with the defendant-
A Uh-huh.
Q –were getting younger and younger? Didn’t you notice that?
A No, I really didn’t.
Q We’ve just been over the ages.
A Yes.
Q And do you dispute that the girls who moved into the defendant’s residence were getting younger and younger; weren’t they?
A They were not all in descending order.
Q Isn’t it true that the girls that went behind closed doors with the defendant were also getting younger and younger; weren’t they?
A I don’t know.
Q Is it your testimony that all of these girls that we’ve talked about here today, Angel Morales, J*** S*******, Lizzy Mercado, Jane Doe 4, Jane Doe 3, P****** R********,Alys
Ondrisek, Jane Doe 2, Jane Doe 5, and Jane Doe 1 were all office workers; is that correct?
A No, they did not all do office work.
Q If they weren’t all office workers, then why did they move into the defendant’s residence?
A There were probably different reasons, but they didn’t all work in the office.
Q Did Angel Morales work in the office?
A Yes, she did.
Q Did J*** F**** work in the office?
A No, not really.
Q Then why did J*** F**** move into the defendant’s residence?
A I really don’t recall everything that she did, but I think she was still in school.
Q So J*** F****, it’s your testimony, moved into the defendant’s residence to attend school?
A No. She — I don’t recall her working in the office.
Q So there’s no reason that J*** F**** moved into the defendant’s residence.
A I think she had problems with her – it’s been a long, long time but I think she had problems with her stepfather and – but I really can’t say for positive.
Q Is it your testimony that J*** S******* was an office staff member, that she worked in the office?
A As I recall she took care of her daughter that she had.
Q She was not an office worker.
A No, not at that time back in Los Angeles, no.
Q She lived in the residence along with the defendant, with yourself.
A Yes.
Q With J*** F****.
A Yes.
Q With Lydia Willis.
A Yes.
Q And with Angel Morales.
A Yes.
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