Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, February 26, 1991 TAG: 9102260449
SECTION: NATL/INTL PAGE: A-2 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: LITTLE ROCK, ARK. LENGTH: Medium
The group's Ozark foothills compound was buzzing with activity when federal and local authorities raided it Feb. 13.
Two days later, the compound's dormitories, apartments, cafeteria and school were empty. So was the mausoleum where Alamo's wife, Susan, was interred after she died of cancer in 1982 and Alamo's efforts to resurrect her failed.
Alamo, 56, has been a fugitive for more than two years, though marshals last week received Scripture-laden facsimile messages purportedly from him.
Authorities acknowledged being surprised that so many people would have disappeared so quickly after the raid on the commune 116 miles north of Little Rock.
But Marshal Jake Patterson said the group, founded in the 1960s with young runaways and other street people recruited in Los Angeles, won't be missed.
"That's not our way of life in this part of the state or this part of the country, so I think a majority of the people are glad to see it go," he said in a recent interview.
The FBI wants Alamo on a charge of unlawful flight to avoid prosecution. He disappeared after being charged with child abuse in California in October 1988.
The charges were filed after an 11-year-old boy told authorities that Alamo ordered four men to beat him with a paddle 140 times.
The U.S. Marshals Service also wants Alamo for contempt of court and failure to appear, stemming from a U.S. Department of Labor ruling that his religious sect violated fair labor laws.
The Internal Revenue Service revoked his group's tax-exempt status in 1985 and seeks $7.9 million in back taxes. Another $1.8 million is sought to satisfy a judgment in favor of six former followers for violations against them.
Federal and local authorities who raided the commune seized cash, vehicles, horses, electronic equipment, tools and more than 1,500 hand-painted, rhinestone-studded denim jackets produced there. The property will be sold at auction to satisfy the $1.8 million judgment.
The raid also turned up thousands of tape recordings of sermons and songs by Alamo.
Alamo's whereabouts remain unknown, but last week marshals received a Scripture-filled facsimile message signed, "Tony Alamo, World Pastor," that advised, "Listen to my tapes for very important information concerning yourself and others like you."
Someone claiming to be Alamo also recently telephoned the Southwest Times Record newspaper in Fort Smith and told a reporter he had Susan Alamo's body.
He vowed that U.S. District Judge Morris Arnold of Fort Smith "will stand before me in my court" and said the judge "should be hanged as a traitor." Arnold was presiding judge in the labor case.
Tony Alamo, a former country singer who has said his real name is Bernie Lazar Hoffman, and Susan Alamo first gained attention in Los Angeles in the mid-1960s when they preached to young runaways and others on Hollywood's Sunset Strip.
They formed the fundamentalist Christian Alamo Foundation in 1969 in then-rural Saugus, Calif. They moved it to Arkansas in the mid-1970s, calling it the Tony and Susan Alamo Foundation.
Alamo carried on the foundation's leadership on his own after his wife died in 1982.
He had vowed then that his wife would be resurrected, and he kept her embalmed body on display for six months while followers prayed for her.
The body eventually was moved to the commune's mausoleum. Authorities who returned two days after the Feb. 13 raid found it empty. Taped to the top was the first page of a court order stating that the body was not to be moved.
Patterson said commune members didn't interfere during the raid but were not cooperative.
by CNB