Evangelist raised towns’ doubts
Posted on Monday, September 22, 2008
MULBERRY — People had harsh words for Tony Alamo on Sunday in Crawford County, where the evangelist, who now is targeted in a federal child pornography probe, once had a tightly controlled ministry compound.
“That guy should be in jail,” Alma resident Pete Peters said, sharing the sentiment of other locals who spoke about Alamo’s reputation and past.
“When I saw [the raid ] on the news last night, I wasn’t surprised,” Peters said. “For as long as I remember, he’s pulled one scam after another. It was like that when he was here, and now look what’s happened at his other church.”
Led by the U. S. Justice Department, Arkansas authorities raided the Tony Alamo Ministries compound in Fouke on Sat- urday as part of a two-year child pornography investigation.
The U. S. attorney’s office said an arrest warrant will be issued for Alamo, 74, who has served time for tax evasion and whose controversial, multistate ministry was called a hate group in 2007 by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
“He’s a cult leader, and he’ll do anything for a damn dollar,” Mulberry resident Tommy said, declining to give his last name.
Gerald Graham, who sat briefly with Tommy at the Kountry Xpress store in Mulberry, said not too many people in the area think highly of Alamo.
“He may have a little support, but it’s not the consensus,” Graham said. “He tried to buffalo people with his religion, but you could tell he was just out for himself.
“ Then he pulled that stunt with keeping his wife’s body up there at the compound, but you could see right through him,” he said. “A scam artist is all he is.”
After Alamo’s wife, Susan, died in 1982 of cancer, he initially refused to bury her body, claiming she’d be resurrected. Her remains eventually were kept in a heart-shaped mausoleum at the Dyer compound on Georgia Ridge Mountain until February 1991 when he ordered church members to remove the coffin before a federal raid.
U. S. marshals took possession of the property to settle a judgment on behalf of six former church members who claimed Alamo had violated federal labor laws.
In 1995, Susan Alamo’s estranged daughter, Christian Coie, won a lawsuit to obtain her mother’s remains.
In 1994, Alamo was convicted of tax evasion and sentenced to six years in prison. After he was paroled in 1998, he moved his ministry to Fouke in Miller County.
Longtime Dyer resident Geneva Evans said Tony and Susan Alamo initially had a small church in town before they established the compound on Georgia Ridge Mountain.
The compound had a church, a store, several houses and dormitories, and a small factory, Evans said. Guards stood along the property, and even the road leading up the mountain had an Alamo presence, she said.
“If you even drove up the road to the mountain, there were boys from the church looking at you like, ‘ What do you think you’re doing up here ?’” Evans said after attending services Sunday at New Bethel Assembly of God in Dyer.
Evans visited the Alamo church once when it was downtown and remembered believing Alamo’s message was insincere.
“It was mostly out of curiosity, and I remember feeling like what [Alamo preached ] was only skin deep,” she said.
New Bethel Pastor Melvin Bookout said he was somewhat surprised to hear the child pornography claims against Alamo, but he wasn’t shocked that Alamo is in trouble again.
“I don’t know him personally, but I get the impression he started with good intentions, but then somewhere along the way it got perverted,” Bookout said. “The word of God is to obey the law, you don’t thumb your nose at it.”
The Sunday afternoon service at the Tony Alamo Christian Church at 4401 Windsor Drive in Fort Smith went on as usual. About a dozen people, including some small children, arrived at the church as time for the 3 p. m. service neared.
The brown brick church has two two-story wings that converge at a foyer with floor to ceiling windows and an exposed staircase. The sanctuary has seating for several hundred. An expansive lawn in front of the church had been freshly mowed and neatly trimmed shrubs lined the sidewalk.
A band warmed up inside the sanctuary while a few people lingered in the foyer. The foyer walls were decorated with photographs of Tony Alamo during various periods of his life. There also was a photo of Tony and Susan Alamo on the wall.
A large map of the world hung on another wall of the foyer and was covered with pins showing the locations of Alamo followers worldwide.
Before the service began, a reporter who showed up to hear Sunday’s message was told to leave because the media was not allowed inside. The reporter was escorted out of the church.
“This isn’t a three-ring circus,” the escort said. Information for this article was provided by David Hughes of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
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