Deputies Arrest 4 at Commune in Child-Abuse Case

About 60 sheriff’s deputies raided a fundamentalist Christian sect’s rural Saugus commune early Thursday morning and arrested four sect members over alleged child abuse. Tony Alamo, the leader of commune, was still being sought late Thursday.

Authorities said the raid on the Tony and Susan Alamo Foundation commune, scattered along Sierra Highway, was prompted by complaints from a child--removed from the commune last week--that he and other children had been beaten.

Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies said they were unable to find Alamo and two other sect members who were also named in an arrest warrant on suspicion of felony child abuse. Commune leaders said one of the missing members was Marc Landgarten, the stepfather of the child who contends he was physically abused.

“There were beatings at the foundation, based on witnesses and kids; that was sufficient to get the warrants,” Deputy Bob Nimtz said.

Medical examinations of the children who formerly lived at the foundation also backed up allegations of physical abuse, he said.

Alamo, in a telephone interview from an undisclosed location, vehemently denied any child abuse had taken place.

“It’s ridiculous. What can I say. It’s ridiculous. I’ve never abused one person or one child in my life,” he said.

During deputies’ four-hour stay at the foundation’s grounds, five other foundation members were arrested on a variety of unrelated charges, ranging from a parole violation to suspicion of burglary and forgery, Nimtz said.

Authorities found no evidence of child abuse when they examined about 20 children living at the commune in remote Mint Canyon, the deputy said. In the presence of their parents or baby-sitters, the children were questioned about their treatment at the commune. No children were removed from the premises, Nimtz said.

But deputies confiscated items used to punish the children and also took written and audio records that detailed corporal punishment being meted out, Deputy Hal Grant said. Authorities would not describe the nature of the punishment.

Laurence Strick, Alamo’s attorney, called the child-abuse charges “spurious” and said the Sheriff’s Department was “duped” in a bitter custody battle being fought by former foundation members.

“You have a bunch of happy, bouncy children up there that are normal as any children in the country,” Strick said.

The Alamo Foundation, which has been rocked by controversy over the years, was formed in the 1960s by Tony Alamo and his late wife, Susan, when they took young runaways off the streets in Hollywood and subjected them to a Spartan life style and fire and brimstone sermons. They moved most of their operations to Arkansas and Nashville, Tenn., in the 1970s after raids by authorities at their Saugus headquarters, but recently moved back when Alamo was subjected to lawsuits and federal investigations in the South.

The Internal Revenue Service revoked the foundation’s tax-exempt status after concluding that one of its primary purposes was making money for its leaders. The foundation is appealing the ruling.

The latest controversy surfaced last week, when three boys were taken from the Saugus property by authorities and turned over to their two fathers, who had left the foundation’s rural Arkansas commune last year. An Orange County judge gave temporary custody of the boys to their fathers after they alleged that the children were victims of physical and emotional abuse.

At a news conference last week, Jeremiah Justin Miller, 11, the adopted son, of Corey Lee Miller, 34, described how children were poorly treated at the heavily guarded commune, where the outside world is looked upon with suspicion.

“Tony had a bunch of people at different times spank different people,” Jeremiah Miller said. “If you’re disrespectful, they spank you.”

The four people arrested on suspicion of child abuse were identified as Terry Farr, 36; Kerry Yunkin, 35; Doug Christopher, 34, and Berry Hanes, 36.

Strick said he would meet with the district attorney’s office Monday to negotiate “what to do with Mr. Alamo.”

In the telephone interview, Alamo said he was out of town on business at the time of the raid. He would not disclose his whereabouts.