Fugitive Preacher Charged With Threatening Judge

Fugitive sect leader-entrepreneur Tony Alamo apparently made one too many phone calls. A grand jury indicted him recently after hearing testimony about phone calls Alamo allegedly made earlier this year to the editor of the Ft. Smith (Ark.) Southwest Times.

The former Los Angeles area preacher fled criminal charges of child abuse in California in 1989, but he has periodically called newspapers from undisclosed locations to proclaim his innocence and accuse the Catholic Church and U.S. officials of conspiring to destroy him and his followers.

The recent federal indictment said Alamo “willfully communicated a threat to kidnap” U.S. District Judge Morris Arnold of Ft. Smith, who had ruled against him in an earlier civil suit.

Southwest Times Editor Jack Moseley testified before the grand jury on the contents of two phone calls Alamo allegedly made to him on Feb. 21. According to Moseley, Alamo called Arnold a “traitor who should be hanged.” Alamo also allegedly said a “Christian police force” would apprehend the judge, and others who opposed the evangelist, and bring him to stand trial before Alamo in the court of God. Moseley wrote a story for the newspaper detailing the conversations he says he had with Alamo.

A conviction on the charge could mean a possible five-year prison term and $5,000 fine. Alamo is also wanted on federal warrants for unlawful flight to avoid prosecution in the California case and for contempt of court.

Arnold presided over the $1.4-million ruling last February against Alamo’s Arkansas-based group, the Tony and Susan Alamo Foundation. The case stemmed from charges brought by a former follower who accused Alamo of physically abusing his child.

In February, federal marshals began seizing Alamo’s real estate holdings in Nashville, at the foundation’s 40-acre compound in Dyer, Ark., and elsewhere, to satisfy the judgment. Manufacturing equipment and excess stock from an Alamo clothing company were also seized.

The IRS also is seeking $7.9 million in back taxes from the Alamo Foundation, which lost its nonprofit status in 1985 on the grounds that money making was the primary purpose of its founder.

Alamo gained notoriety in 1982 when his wife, Susan, died. Claiming that she would be resurrected, he kept her embalmed body displayed while followers prayed for six months. When authorities arrived at the Alamo compound in February, they discovered that her body had been illegally removed from a crypt.