26 September 2008

The other Alamo

Not the monument in Texas, nor the car rental company, but the evangelist and convicted tax evader who says the age of consent is puberty and there's a mandate in the Bible for girls marrying young:
Alamo faces charges he transported children across state lines for sexual activities, in violation of the Mann Act. Alamo is likely to appear Friday in federal court in Flagstaff, Ariz., where federal agents and local police arrested him outside of a mountainside resort. Police officials said there were several women traveling with Alamo when agents arrested him, but none were minors. FBI documents identified Alamo by his birth name, Bernie Lazar Hoffman. Alamo has said he was born Jewish but converted to Christianity. He turned 74 the day federal agents and Arkansas state police had raided the Fouke headquarters of Tony Alamo Christian Ministries on Saturday. Officials removed six girls ages 10 to 17 from the compound and sought evidence that children there had been molested or filmed having sex.
Alamo and his late wife Susan were street preachers in Los Angeles before forming a commune near Saugus, Calif. Susan Alamo died of cancer in 1982; Alamo claimed she would be resurrected and kept her body on display for six months while followers prayed.
Alamo was convicted of tax-related charges in 1994 and served four years in prison after the IRS said he owed the government $7.9 million. Prosecutors in that case argued that Alamo was a flight risk and a polygamist who preyed on married women and girls in his congregation.
Since establishing his ministries in Arkansas, Alamo has been a controversial and flamboyant figure in the state. Snapshots often show him wearing large dark sunglasses, and he recently said he is legally blind.
In his autobiography, My Life, former President Bill Clinton, an Arkansas native, described Alamo recalled traveling in 1975 to see Dolly Parton sing at Alamo's compound in the town of Alma. Remembering the fiasco after Susan Alamo's death, Clinton wrote: "A couple of years later, he got involved with a younger woman. Lo and behold, God spoke to him again and told him Susan wasn't coming back after all, so he took her out of the glass box and buried her."
Rico says he knows Jesus was born Jewish and converted everybody he could to Christianity, but he doesn't believe there's anything in the Bible about marrying girls who are ten years old...

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