Deputies Seize Boys Who Fathers Claim Were Sect Hostages

Sheriff’s deputies acting on a court order raided two fundamentalist Christian communes in rural Saugus early Thursday morning to seize three children allegedly being held “hostage” by the sect’s leader, Tony Alamo.

The three boys, none over the age of 11, are the subject of a bitter custody dispute between their fathers, who fled Alamo’s unorthodox church last September saying they feared for their lives, and their mothers, who remain active members of the secretive organization.

Judge Orders Seizure

Orange County Superior Court Judge Ronald E. Owen ordered Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies to seize the boys after their fathers, Robert Alan Miller, 36, and Corey Lee Miller, 34, made sworn statements that they feared the Tony and Susan Alamo Christian Foundation would try to spirit the children out of the country.

When the boys--Robert’s two sons, 9 and 4 years old, and Corey’s 11-year-old son--were brought before him later Thursday, Owen placed them in the custody of their fathers until the next hearing in the case, scheduled for April 11.

Neither the Millers, who are brothers, nor the boys were available for comment after the court hearing in Santa Ana, and their attorney, Sidney L. Radus, declined to elaborate on the papers the two men filed with the court.

But those papers accuse Alamo of running a cult that exploited the Miller brothers and “brainwashed” their wives and which now threatens their children with “physical and emotional abuse by the members and leaders” of the evangelical sect.

The children “are being held hostage to keep them and their mother under the domination and control of the Alamo foundation and Tony Alamo,” the papers state.

The papers say the church issued “phony” divorce certificates for the mothers, Susan L. Miller and Carol Ann Miller, and remarried them to Alamo devotees.

The mothers did not attend the hearing because they were in New York with Alamo and their new husbands, selling clothing manufactured at church workshops, foundation attorney Jack Kessler said.

The mothers could not be reached for comment, but Alamo, in a telephone interview from New York, said the Miller brothers were traitors to his church who were using the court to exact revenge.

Alamo said that the divorces were legitimate and that he had married the women to two of his followers who “are really good, Christian young men.” He added that the church would pay legal bills for the women during the custody fight.

Alamo Sect Divisions

The Alamo sect, whose divisions include the Holy Alamo Church and the Music Square Church as well as the foundation, operates several communes across the country in which about 3,000 followers live, representatives of the group said.

Alamo said church “volunteers” pledge their earnings to the group in exchange for their food, clothing and shelter.

The church ran several businesses, but Alamo said these were closed following a U.S. Labor Department suit alleging that the Alamo followers who worked for them were being exploited through long hours and pay far below the minimum wage.

In separate but nearly identical court papers, the Millers sketch their history in the Alamo sect.

They say they joined the group in Southern California in the early 1970s and moved to a commune operated by the group near Dyer, Ark.

Both Millers met their wives through the sect, the papers say, and married the women shortly thereafter.

“Among other things,” Robert says in his statement, “I signed an agreement to transfer all my assets and earnings to the ‘church.’ The ‘church’ would thereafter provide for all my needs.”

After starting a profitable trucking business with his brother, Robert states, “Tony Alamo, sole authority and head of our church demanded full and complete control of our business and all of its assets while leaving my brother and I (sic) liable for all debts of the business.”

Without elaboration, Robert’s statement continues: “On Sept. 29, 1987, I was forced to flee from the commune at Dyer, Ark., in fear of my life. . . . My wife is absolutely and completely brainwashed by Tony Alamo to the extent that she now has consented to live with another man as husband and wife. . . . She is convinced that Tony Alamo is above the law and next only to God.”

Attached to the court papers are copies of a sect-issued “Biblical Bill of Divorcement or Get” bearing several religious symbols and handwritten notes from the wives demanding that their husbands keep away.

“To Corey: This is a short note to inform you, Corey, I don’t want to hear from you, or have anything to do with you and especially not to ever see you again, Carol,” read one of the notes, dated Oct. 13, 1987.

The Miller brothers now live in Orange, Radus said, and thus it was an Orange County judge, Owen, who issued the order to the Los Angeles County sheriff.

Radus said the court order, which was served by more than a dozen members of the sheriff’s fugitive detail backed by uniformed deputies and a helicopter, was necessary to prevent the sect from taking the children out of the country.

Alamo, however, denied that his church was a “cult,” saying “a cult is a church where the leader states that he is God. I don’t say I’m God, I just say I’m a servant saved by grace.”

Rules Broken, Alamo Says

The sect leader said that the Miller brothers had violated church rules by operating their trucking company without his knowledge and had embezzled more than $100,000 from his followers who handed over their salaries to the Millers thinking it would be donated to the Alamo foundation.

Alamo said the Miller brothers had fled the Arkansas commune when he discovered their scheme.

However, prosecutors in Arkansas declined to press charges against the Millers, Alamo said.

Alamo would not speculate why the Millers left his church on such bad terms after living among his followers for more than a decade.

“Why did Judas betray Jesus?” he said. “Jesus never did anything bad to him except say that he was going to Hell if he was a devil, which he was.”

The Alamo sect, founded in the mid-1960s, says that it aids the down and out by giving them work at the group’s communes.

The group is known for its unusual religious theories, including assertions that the Pope is a homosexual and that the Vatican controls the press and government officials in the United States.

In 1985, the Internal Revenue Service revoked the Alamo foundation’s tax-exempt status, deciding that one of its primary purposes was making money.