Tony Alamo

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Tony Alamo, from a tract left on a car windshield

Tony Alamo (born Bernie LaZar Hoffman on September 20, 1934[1][2]) is an American preacher, singer, entrepreneur, and religious evangelist. He and his late wife Susan are best known as the founders of a radical, nominally "fundamentalist" organization currently known as Tony Alamo Christian Ministries. The organization is based in and around Fouke and Alma, Arkansas, United States.[3] It has been referred to as a cult.[2][4][5][6]

Contents

[edit] Biography

Hoffman was born in Joplin, Missouri,[1][2] to Jewish-Romanian parents in 1934.[7] As a child he moved with his family to Montana, where he was briefly employed as a delivery boy for Helena's Independent Record newspaper.[8]

In the early 1960s, Hoffman moved to Los Angeles, California. He assumed the names Marcus Abad and Mark Hoffman and pursued a career in music. He was briefly incarcerated for a weapon-related offense.[2] Hoffman married Helen Hagan (born Helen Alice Muller in New York, New York) in 1961. On May 25, 1964, the couple had a son, Mark Anthony Hoffman. While married to Helen, he met aspiring actress Susan Lipowitz (born Edith Opal Horn in Dyer, Arkansas[7]), a Jewish convert to evangelical Christianity who was nine years older than Hoffman and married to a man whom Hoffman would later describe as a "small time Los Angeles hood".[8] After both Hoffman's and Lipowitz' divorces, Lipowitz and Hoffman married in a 1966 Las Vegas, Nevada, ceremony, and the couple legally changed their names to Tony and Susan Alamo.[2]

Together, the couple established the Tony and Susan Alamo Christian Foundation in 1969 in Hollywood, California.[7] They also manufactured and sold a line of "Tony Alamo" brand sequined denim jackets, a business that would eventually land Alamo in prison for tax evasion.[9]

Susan delivered the sermons on the Alamos' syndicated TV program during the 1970s while Tony appeared to sing a gospel song. When Susan died of cancer on April 8, 1982, Alamo claimed she would be resurrected and kept her body on display for six months while their followers prayed. After 16 years her body was given to her childhood family. [10]

In 1984 Alamo married Birgetta Oyllenhammer, owner of a clothing design and manufacturing company in Southern California.

In 1985 Alamo excoriated the Pope and president Ronald Reagan. "Did you know that the Pope and Ronald Reagan are a couple of Anti-Christ Devils and that they are selling us all down the drain?" asked a tract entitled Genocide. That same year, a federal grand jury in Memphis, Tennessee, charged Alamo with filing a false income tax return, and he reportedly failed to file income tax returns during the next three years.

He then married Elizabeth Amrhein. After a custody battle, they lost control of her children.

For a time Alamo had a retail store in Nashville, Tennessee, called The Alamo of Nashville.

In February 1991 Alamo ordered his followers to bring along his second wife's body when they evacuated the Tony and Susan Alamo Christian Foundation compound in Crawford County, Arkansas. The compound was about to be raided by federal marshals in the wake of a civil lawsuit against Alamo.

Alamo was ultimately convicted of federal tax evasion in 1994. He completed a prison sentence and was released on December 8, 1998.[11] He then went to a halfway house in Texarkana.

Tony Alamo Christian Ministries' leaflet placed on an automobile windshield

Alamo's followers sometimes distribute tracts of his writings publicly. The tracts predict impending doom and Armageddon and invite the reader to accept Jesus as his or her savior while condemning Catholicism, the Pope and the American government as a Satanic conspiracy behind events such as 9/11, the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor and the John F. Kennedy assassination. Tracts currently being distributed include a picture of Alamo circa 1986. In a tract distributed shortly before the siege of the Branch Davidian establishment in Waco, Texas, Alamo protested the media's use of the word "compound" to describe the campus of his seminary and the word "cult" to describe his ministry.

[edit] Controversies

[edit] Suffrage

Alamo voted in the 2006 runoff election in Fouke, Arkansas (12 miles (19 km) southeast of Texarkana) in support of incumbent Cecil Smith. This vote was challenged by Miller County Clerk Ann Nicholas on the grounds that Alamo is a convicted felon. Alamo presented a signed letter from probation officer John C. Mooney Jr., stating that Alamo's term of supervision had ended on December 7, 1999. The letter did not explicitly state that Alamo's suffrage had been restored.

The Arkansas Secretary of State's office issued a statement saying that the county clerk did not have the authority to challenge a ballot on those grounds, and Alamo's ballot was ultimately accepted. However, Smith was defeated by candidate Terry Purvis with a tally of 216-151.[12][1]

[edit] Allegations of child abuse at ministry

On September 20, 2008, federal and state investigative agents raided the Arkansas headquarters of the ministry as part of a child pornography investigation.[13][14] This investigation involved allegations of physical abuse, sexual abuse and allegations of polygamy and underage marriage. According to Terry Purvis, mayor of Fouke, Arkansas, his office has received complaints from former ministry members about allegations of child abuse, sexual abuse and polygamy since the ministry established itself in the area. In turn, Purvis turned over information about the allegations to the FBI.[15] Alamo denied the child abuse allegations.[16] On September 25, 2008, Alamo was arrested by Arizona police and FBI agents in Flagstaff, Arizona, on a federal warrant out of Texarkana, Arkansas, federal court (case number 08-40020) on charges that he transported minors over state lines for sexual activity in violation of the Mann Act.[17] On October 17, 2008, he pled not guilty, and his case is set for trial.[18]

On October 22, 2008, Alamo's former followers testified in court during a preliminary hearing that Alamo had practiced polygamy and had taken a nine year-old girl as a wife.[19]

On December 2, 2008, a judge in Arkansas unsealed a federal indictment that includes eight new charges against Alamo. The 74-year-old Alamo, who remains jailed while awaiting trial, originally faced two charges of taking minor girls across state lines for sex. The eight new counts are similar and involve four new alleged victims.[20] His trial began on July 13, 2009.

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c Sherman, Bill (2006-12-03). "Storied evangelist still preaching: Tony Alamo continues to stir controversy from the Arkansas town he calls home.". Tulsa World (World Publishing Company, Tulsa, OK). http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?articleID=061203_Ne_A1_Stori11149. Retrieved on 2006-12-29. 
  2. ^ a b c d e Fisher, G.R. and Goedelman, M.K. (2001). Remember the Alamo!. Personal Freedom Outreach. http://www.pfo.org/rememberalamo.htm. Retrieved on 2006-12-29. 
  3. ^ Alamo Christian Ministries' official web site directs inquiries to a Texarkana, Texas post office box. The Alamo Ministries compound is in Fouke, Arkansas
  4. ^ Francke, Eric W. (c. 2000). A Brief History of the Alamo Christian Foundation. New England Institute of Religious Research. http://neirr.org/alamohist.htm. Retrieved on 2006-12-30. 
  5. ^ Waters, Tim (1991-02-20). "Body of Cult Leader's Wife Stolen from Mausoleum". Los Angeles Times (Tribune Company): p. B3. http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/latimes/access/2071141.html?dids=2071141&FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS&type=current. Retrieved on 2006-12-30. 
  6. ^ Ricci, James (1997-02-20). "Cult Leader Loses Ruling Over Dead Wife's Body". Los Angeles Times (Tribune Company): p. B4. http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/latimes/access/11096169.html?dids=11096169:11096169&FMT=CITE&FMTS=CITE:FT&type=current. Retrieved on 2006-12-30. 
  7. ^ a b c Tony Alamo Materials. Central Arkansas Library System
  8. ^ a b Alamo Christian Ministries/Music Square Church. Montana Human Rights Network]
  9. ^ "Jury Convicts an Evangelist in Tax Evasion", New York Times, June 12, 1994
  10. ^ "Evangelist: 'Puberty' is age of sexual consent", CNN, September 23, 2008
  11. ^ Bernie Lazar Hoffman, prisoner number 00305-112, Federal Bureau of Prisons, U.S. Dep't of Justice, at [1].
  12. ^ Williamson, Jim (2006-12-05). "Official: Clerk cannot contest ballot: Miller County Election Commission accepts vote from Tony Alamo". Texarkana Gazette. http://www.texarkanagazette.com/articles/2006/12/05/local_news/news/news01.txt. Retrieved on 2006-12-29. 
  13. ^ Evangelist's compound raided in child porn case. CNN. Retrieved September 20, 2008.
  14. ^ FBI agents raid Arkansas ministry in child porn probe. (September 20, 2008). KCAL News (Los Angeles, California). Retrieved September 20, 2008.
  15. ^ Gambrell, J. (September 20, 2008). Arkansas compound raided in child porn case. Freedom Communications, Inc. Retrieved September 20, 2008.
  16. ^ "Evangelist's compound raided in child abuse case". CNN. 2008-09-20. 
  17. ^ Gambrell, John. "FBI: Evangelist Alamo arrested in child sex probe". AP via Yahoo News. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080926/ap_on_re_us/evangelist_child_porn_3. Retrieved on 2008-09-26. 
  18. ^ Chuck Bartels, "Evangelist Alamo arraigned on child-sex charges". http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hVFjRI-s7AtZjYuZbagzq8RWYU7AD93SG9NG0.  (accessed October 18, 2008).
  19. ^ Follower: Evangelist Alamo had 9-year-old bride, CNN, October 22, 2008
  20. ^ LaRowe, Lynn. December 3, 2008, Texarkana Gazette, "Judge unseals Alamo papers". Accessed December 29, 2008.

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