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6 in Sect Charged With Child Abuse : Leader Alamo, 5 Others Sought in Beating of 11-Year-Old Boy

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Times Staff Writer

Tony Alamo, leader of an unorthodox Christian sect in the Santa Clarita Valley, has been charged with felony child abuse in the beating early last year of an 11-year-old child in the group’s commune, authorities said Friday.

The Los Angeles County district attorney’s office filed the charges in October against Alamo and five of his followers, but had the arrest warrants sealed in hopes of apprehending the six, who have disappeared. Among those charged was Carol Ann Miller Landgarten, 36, the mother of the alleged victim, Justin Miller.

The district attorney’s office made the charges public this week after efforts to locate the suspects failed.

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“We have basically done everything we can to find these people without scaring them away,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Robert B. Foltz. With Alamo’s financial resources, Foltz said, “He could be living in Brazil tomorrow and we will never see him again.”

Alamo, 54, in a telephone interview Friday from an undisclosed location, called the Lancaster prosecutor part of a “legal mafia” that is trying to divert his attention from winning souls. Alamo returned a phone message left at his church.

‘He Didn’t Even Cry’

“I favor spanking children; you know that,” Alamo said. “It says so in the Bible. People have to decide whether to do what the Lord says or the state.”

When Justin was spanked, “he didn’t even cry. It was a very light, easy spanking,” Alamo said.

Authorities contend the child was beaten on the buttocks 140 times with a three-foot paddle in January, 1988, at the commune in the remote Mint Canyon area of Saugus.

The beating was encouraged by Alamo, who was in a bungalow next door and issued instructions over a speaker phone, Foltz said. After each of the child’s transgressions were read aloud, Alamo allegedly told the man administering the punishment how many times to hit the child. “Mr. Alamo would indicate God told him to strike the child,” the prosecutor said.

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Three of the defendants held the boy down and a fourth, Terry Robert Farr, 37, administered the blows, authorities said. Miller’s mother encouraged the beating, Foltz said, by shouting such things as: “You’re a liar, just like your father. We’re just going to have to beat the father out of you.”

Before the incident, Justin’s father, Carey Miller, 34, had rejected Alamo’s teachings and left the commune. Miller was later reunited with his son after sheriff’s deputies took Justin and Miller’s two nephews from the commune.

An Orange County Superior Court judge granted permanent custody to the children’s fathers in June and forbade the two mothers from coming within 200 yards of the boys’ homes or schools.

After he was rescued, Justin Miller told police that he had been beaten. Foltz said the boy had to sit on a pillow for two or three weeks because of pain from the assault.

“Two months later, there was still deep tissue bruising. The swats actually brought body fluid to the skin surface. The child had a bloody butt,” Foltz said.

Commune Raided

The boy’s accusation triggered a raid on the commune in March, 1988, during which about 60 deputies confiscated paddles and other evidence.

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The district attorney’s office decided last spring not to bring criminal charges after concluding there was not enough evidence. Since then, however, a former Alamo church member who saw the attack has cooperated with authorities, Foltz said.

Alamo and the other defendants were each charged with one count of child abuse and one count of inflicting cruel and inhumane corporal punishment. The others charged were Allen Rehn, 35; Kerry Warren Younkin, 37, and Marc Stuart Landgarten, 40.

Alamo operates the secretive Tony & Susan Alamo Foundation, best known for circulating anti-Catholic literature.

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