Evangelist Convicted on Federal Tax Charges : Courts: Ruling in Memphis clears the way for Tony Alamo to return to L.A. to face counts in alleged beating of boy.

Flamboyant evangelist Tony Alamo was convicted on federal tax charges in Memphis on Wednesday, clearing the way for him to return to Los Angeles to stand trial on charges that he ordered the beating of a young boy at his Saugus commune.

A hearing in the Saugus case is scheduled for today in Los Angeles Superior Court. Alamo is accused of directing four men via telephone from another location to strike 11-year-old Jeremiah Miller 140 times with a large paddle at the commune in Mint Canyon in 1988.

A Memphis grand jury indicted Alamo in April of last year on charges of filing a false income tax return in 1985 and failing to file tax returns the following three years. Federal Court jurors in Memphis found the former country singer guilty on all counts Wednesday.

Alamo faces a maximum penalty of six years in prison and a $550,000 fine, IRS spokesman Dan Boone said.

Alamo, whose real name is Bernie Lazar Hoffman, had blamed Satan for his woes when he was arrested. But Alamo cannot find a defense for his tax problems in the Bible, said Justice Department lawyer Christopher Belcher, who noted in his closing arguments that the Bible says Christ was born after Joseph and Mary returned to Bethlehem to pay their taxes.

“All Tony Alamo had to do was go to the mail box and drop a return in the mail,” he said.

Alamo’s attorney, Jeffrey Dickstein, blamed Alamo’s legal troubles on his ex-wives, overbearing government agencies and former church members. He said Alamo’s businesses operated at a loss and Alamo had no income.

Internal Revenue Service officials claim that Alamo and his wife Susan, who died of cancer in 1982, shortchanged the IRS an estimated $10 million in taxes on income earned from a variety of businesses, using the tax-exempt Tony and Susan Alamo Christian Foundation and later the Music Square Church.

The Alamos founded the Holy Alamo Christian Church in the 1960s, taking young dropouts and drug users off the streets of Hollywood and providing them with food, shelter and anti-Catholic religious sermons.

Their religious following grew to hundreds of members in California, Arkansas and Tennessee in the 1970s and 1980s, when communes and church-owned businesses staffed with free labor from their followers earned millions of dollars, particularly off production of glitzy, rhinestone-studded denim jackets that sold in exclusive boutiques for as much as $600 each.

But with success came allegations of child abuse, labor exploitation and luxurious living, and the IRS stripped the Alamo Foundation of its tax-exempt status in 1985.

Federal authorities began hunting Alamo as a fugitive after he disappeared in 1989 as Los Angeles County authorities investigated the alleged beating of the Miller boy.

Miller was at the center of a custody dispute between his mother, a member of Alamo’s church, and his father, who had left the church and accused Alamo of stealing his family’s trucking business. The father and son were later among former church members who won a federal court judgment against Alamo in Arkansas.

Alamo, who would have been spared from a jail sentence if he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor child abuse charge, has denied any wrongdoing. He faces a possible six-year sentence if convicted.