Evangelist: 'Puberty' is age of sexual consent

LITTLE ROCK, Arkansas (AP) -- Since Tony Alamo's start as a California street preacher more than 40 years ago, the self-styled evangelist's story has been colorful and checkered.
Evangelist Tony Alamo claimed his late wife, Susan, would be resurrected and kept her body on display.



When his wife died of cancer, Alamo claimed that she would be resurrected and kept her body on display for six months while their followers prayed. It would be 16 years before her body was returned to her family.

For a time, his elaborately painted denim jackets were a must-have in Hollywood, but sales contributed to tax problems that landed him in prison for four years in the 1990s.

Alamo was charged but not convicted of other crimes, including child abuse. Now the 74-year-old is accused by former church members of abusing children and running an organization in which girls who just reached puberty can marry. Agents raided his southwest Arkansas compound Saturday and placed six girls in state custody.

On Monday, Alamo spoke of the allegations with a mix of denial and defiance, saying that he never promoted sexual abuse but that he believes there's a mandate from the Bible for young girls to marry.

"In the Bible, it happened. But girls today, I don't marry 'em if they want to at 14, 15 years old. Because we won't do it, even though I believe it's OK," Alamo said.

On Saturday, he had said that for girls having sex, "consent is puberty."

On Monday, he bristled at descriptions of his organization as a cult, saying enemies want to cast him as a "weirdo for preaching what the Bible says."

People who have left Alamo's organization say they have witnessed older men marrying girls who just reached puberty.

The U.S. Attorney's Office said in an e-mail that was inadvertently sent to media last week that agents expected to find children ages 12 to 14 who had been abused and that they expected to file charges. The e-mail said agents believed that child pornography was being produced at the compound in Fouke.

Alamo also denied creating any pornography.


Government agents "have got six of our girls in custody. Little girls. They probably disrobed them. I mean, it's the most filthy bunch of devils that I've ever heard of," Alamo said.

As for former followers making the allegations, Alamo said, "I've kicked a lot of people out of the church, and they'll say anything to get back at me."

He suggested that efforts to gather evidence against him will only bring more people to his ministry, noting that daily traffic on his Web site has grown more than 10-fold, to more than 1 million hits, since the raid.

"They're really making us famous," he said with a laugh.

Alamo, who now lives in California, said he still preaches daily. He bought land in Arkansas in 1975 for a complex near Alma and from there grew to own a number of businesses.

Fashion was his best-known business. His painted denim jackets were worn by celebrities for a time and even now are offered for hundreds or even thousands of dollars on the Internet. Alamo's Web site features a picture of Mr. T wearing one.

Alamo went to prison for tax evasion after the complex was raided in 1991. He fled with his followers before the raid, taking with him the body of his wife, who had died nine years earlier.

In order to be released from his sentence in 1998, Alamo followed a judge's order to return Susan Alamo's remains to members of her family.

And Alamo's property had been raided once before, in 1988 in Santa Ana, California, where state officials came to seize three boys and return them to their fathers' custody.

An 11-year-old boy told police that Alamo directed four men to strike him 140 times with a wooden paddle as punishment for minor offenses. Alamo briefly faced a child-abuse charge, but a prosecutor directed that the count be dropped, citing a lack of evidence.

In 1991, Alamo was acquitted on a charge that he threatened to kidnap a federal judge.

Alamo claims to be unique among Christian preachers because he was born a Jew and had a "supernatural experience" through which he became a born-again Christian.

"I am a completed Jew," he said, though he added that he had never believed in Judaism.

Alamo's anti-Catholic bias is evident as he speaks. He claims that the White House is in league with the Vatican, which he says also controls the United Nations.

He said that being a Jew gives him special insight.

"We wrote the Bible. I don't want these stinking gentiles in Rome telling me what it says. They don't know," he said.

Under state law, investigators have to make a court filing after a search warrant is executed that details what the search found. But Circuit Judge Jim Hudson said the document would be kept under seal because of the juveniles involved.

The six girls taken into state custody will require a hearing if they remain with the state on a long-term basis, but there was no indication Monday that a hearing had been set.

Arkansas Department of Human Services spokeswoman Julie Munsell said the children were taken from the compound because they were "in harm's way or in imminent danger." She said the state is trying to identify the children's parents.

As for what would inspire people to follow Alamo or other charismatic leaders, there is no single or easy answer, said David Bromley, professor of religious studies at Virginia Commonwealth University.

"These groups vary, and when they are at the hot stage, there is intense commitment. When people leave, when you have that kind of intensity, they tend to be rejected by the group, and they tend to be quite hostile when they leave," said Bromley, who is writing a book on why people join such movements.

Bromley said that such organizations may not be as strong as they seem.

"These groups are much more diverse than they appear on the surface. You have people who look and talk alike, but when you find out who the members are, you find the levels of commitment are enormously different," Bromley said.

"It looks pretty solid to you from the outside, but you find out people have different reasons for being there and that half are on their way in and half are on their way out," he said.

Alamo would not discuss how his organization operates beyond saying it accepts donations. He said he has workers who keep the books and pay the bills, including his $70,000 salary.
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"Even if I knew, I wouldn't tell, because the damn government would come right after [donors]," he said. "I wouldn't be that simple-minded to tell anybody where the money comes from.

"You must think I'm very stupid after 44 years of this stuff," Alamo said.

Children taken in raid to remain in state's custody

LITTLE ROCK, Arkansas (AP) -- Six girls removed from an evangelical compound as part of an investigation into the possible sexual abuse of minors will remain in state custody for the near future, a state official said Tuesday.
Authorities raided Tony Alamo Christian Ministries on Saturday after allegations of child sex abuse.


The Arkansas Department of Human Services had until Tuesday night to ask the court for permission to keep the children or return them to the Tony Alamo Christian Ministries compound. State and federal agents raided the compound Saturday looking for evidence that children were being molested.

Department spokeswoman Julie Munsell said she couldn't comment about the legal process surrounding the girls' future, but acknowledged they wouldn't be leaving the state's care Tuesday.

"If you don't see kids coming back today, you can assume we're moving forward in this process," Munsell told The Associated Press just before the deadline.

State lawyers will appear before a Miller County judge sometime in the next five days for a closed-door hearing about the girls' future. The judge will decide whether the state had enough evidence to warrant removing the children from their homes.

Investigators have identified the girls, who range in age from 10 to 17, but are trying to determine who their legal guardians are, Munsell said.

There have been no arrests in connection with the raid, but U.S. Attorney Bob Balfe said prior to the raid that he expects a warrant to be issued for Tony Alamo.

Alamo, 74, has denied the abuse allegations and called the raid an attempt to smear him. He has said he believes polygamy is allowed by the Bible and "consent is puberty" when it comes to young girls having sex.

Alamo was convicted of tax-related charges in 1994 and served four years in prison. Prosecutors in the tax case argued before sentencing that Alamo was a flight risk and a polygamist who preyed on married women and girls in his congregation.

In an interview posted on the ministry's Web site Tuesday night, Alamo said that police confiscated computers at the Fouke compound, as well as went through his personal effects.

"They tore my bedroom apart, they went through every book, all my papers, they took the computers that were in the office," he said. "I don't run computers at all because I'm legally blind. If I was into pornography, what good would that be? I can't even see it."

Teacher: Student, 13, 'was like a man to me'

OMAHA, Nebraska (AP) -- A former math teacher sentenced to federal prison for a sex crime with a minor says the age of the 13-year-old schoolboy she fled with to Mexico didn't matter to her.

Kelsey Peterson was sentenced to six years in federal prison for running off to Mexico with a student.



"We didn't see age anymore. ... In my mind he quit being a teenage boy. ... to me, he was a man," Kelsey Peterson said in a taped interview on ABC's "Good Morning America" that aired Wednesday.

Peterson, 26, was sentenced Monday to six years in federal prison and five years of supervised release. She also must register as a sex offender.

She pleaded guilty in July to a charge of transporting a minor across state lines to have sex.

Peterson was the boy's sixth-grade math teacher at Lexington Middle School in south-central Nebraska during the 2005-06 school year and started having sex with him in November 2006, according to court documents.

The pair disappeared in October, soon after the district's superintendent confronted Peterson about allegations of an inappropriate relationship with the boy.

She was arrested a week later in Mexicali, Mexico, after the boy made a cell phone call to his family.

Peterson still faces state charges that include kidnapping, felony child abuse and first-degree sexual assault. Dawson County Attorney Elizabeth Waterman said Monday that her staff will work to get custody of Peterson so she can face those charges.



Peterson said in the ABC interview that she was drawn to the boy, then 12, and thought to herself, "I can change this guy." She said her actions were wildly out of line with her upbringing in a Christian household.

She had expected to grow up and get married, she said, then have children and live in a house with a picket fence.

"I made choice after choice after choice that didn't allow that," Peterson said.

In a separate interview, her attorney, James Martin Davis, blamed the boy. Davis has publicly questioned the boy's age, saying he was likely at least 16, despite Mexican documents and statements from the boy's family.

Peterson also expressed remorse for how her actions have affected her family and especially her 9-year-old daughter.

"She was my life," Peterson said. "I owe her more apologies than I can ever give."

Costumed Child Abuse Suspect May Enter Plea

A plea hearing is scheduled on Monday for a man accused of abusing children. William Watkins, 54, was known for dressing up as the Grinch and Beetlejuice at a local haunted house. It's unclear where the alleged abuse took place.

Police found the costumed photographs at Watkins home and hoped releasing them would help bring more victims forward.

William Watkins, first popped up on police radar a couple years ago when a then 11-year-old girl accused him of sexual abuse. Then in December 2007, another girl came forward. Watkins was originally charged with first degree child molestation, possession of child pornography, and five counts of first degree statutory sodomy.

Since then, five new young victims have came forward. Watkins was charged with an additional eight new counts including three counts of first degree statutory sodomy, and five counts of first degree child molestation involving the girls under the age of 12.

Police said he dressed as Beetlejuice at a Metro haunted house, had several addresses in Independence and about four years ago moved his salon into his home.

Police said they pulled evidence including a computer containing child porn from the house, but they won't say what it is that makes them think Watkins has been hurting kids since 1982.

Watkins is scheduled to be in court Monday afternoon for a plea hearing