ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, August 1, 1996 TAG: 9608010060
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JAN VERTEFEUILLE STAFF WRITER
THE BOOK IS CALLED "Brother Tony's Boys," about a pedophiliac tent revivalist who used his evangelical powers to lure boys from their parents all over the South - including in Roanoke County.
Seven years after a trio of child-molesting traveling evangelists were prosecuted in Roanoke federal court, a book detailing the case has hit the bookstores. Its author will be in Roanoke this week for book signings.
Mike Echols describes his book, "Brother Tony's Boys," as "the definitive tale of how a minister, who is also a pederast and pedophile, can ingratiate himself to kids and keep their parents in the dark."
Evangelist Tony Leyva ran a nondenominational tent revival that traveled around the South beginning in the 1960s. He admitted to molesting at least 100 boys, some as young as 8, for about 25 years.
Leyva's associates, church organist Rias Edward Morris and minister Freddie Herring, shared some of those boys after the three discovered their common interest in pedophilia in 1983.
Complaints in many jurisdictions resulted only in Leyva being run out of town by law enforcement. He finally was charged in Roanoke County in 1987, and as the scope of his actions became known, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Roanoke brought federal charges against him.
The three evangelists had the perfect setup for their crimes, taking advantage of the faithful who were taught never to question "God's anointed" and moving from place to place frequently in search of new victims.
The trio were arrested for transporting minors across state lines for prostitution, charges that stemmed from offering food, money and travel in exchange for sex.
Leyva often told parents who were having trouble with their sons that he would take them on the road to work in his revivals, teach them religion and help some become ministers. He picked up boys across the Southeast and Midwest this way.
"This could not have happened to this extent with this many kids in any [other] faith that I know of," Echols said.
Echols is a California resident and author of another nonfiction book, "I Know My First Name is Steven," about the longest case in U.S. history of a child who was abducted by a stranger and later returned safely. That book was made into a TV miniseries.
Echols, a former social worker who says he worked extensively with sexually abused boys, said he conducted more than 100 hours of interviews for "Brother Tony's Boys."
He said he first got involved in the case because he planned to do a free-lance article about it when Leyva was in federal court.
"I didn't really understand the scope of it till I got to the courthouse [on the day of the guilty pleas]," Echols said. "There were dozens of kids in the hallway out in the foyer. They lined up to tell their story."
The book details Leyva's molestation of numerous victims, as well as his Roanoke County trial on state charges, and his federal case. The book also shows how victims across the South who complained to their local law enforcement were ignored repeatedly for years. And it claims that Leyva on occasion lent young boys for sex to "government men" who flew into various Southern locations in planes marked with official U.S. seals.
Leyva will likely be paroled in 1998. Herring and Morris already have been paroled.
If Leyva had auditioned for a part in a Hollywood movie, he might have been rejected as too far-fetched, too over-the-top. He sported slicked-back, coiffed hair, polyester suits and gold jewelry. Without a trace of irony, he billed himself as "Super Christian" and bounded around tent revivals wearing a tight T-shirt emblazoned with a Superman-style "S" and a satin cape around his neck.
He was married in his early 20s to his childhood sweetheart, Mary Pitts, who says now that she thinks having a family was "more or less a cover-up" for him. They were married about four years before she learned of her husband's taste for young boys. She found out after he molested her brother.
"I didn't even know those kinds of people existed, that those things happened," she said in a telephone interview with The Roanoke Times last year.
Twenty-five years ago, her father tried to get authorities to do something but they laughed at him, she said.
"I tried to forgive him. The next thing I know, everywhere we go something's popping up again. Every time I turned around, there was another little boy in our life."
Although he admitted his guilt in federal court, Leyva now says he was framed. He blames his criminal problems on persecution by the government because he says he watched U.S. ships loading drugs in Cuba while on a visit there in the 1980s.
He signs his letters from prison to his followers, ``Bro. Tony (TIMEX) Leyva, Takes a lickin' but keeps on tickin'!''
Echols will be in town Friday and Saturday signing books. Friday, he will be at two-hour book signings at Books-A-Million at noon; Waldenbooks in Valley View at 3 p.m.; and Waldenbooks in Tanglewood Mall at 7 p.m. On Saturday, he will be at Books, Strings & Things in downtown Roanoke at 1 p.m. and at Waldenbooks in the New River Valley Mall at 4 p.m.
LENGTH: Medium: 98 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: 1. (headshot) Echols. 2. File 1988. Tony Leyva (in darkby CNBglasses), with church organist Rias Edward Morris as the pair enter
federal court in Roanoke, admitted his guilt but now says he was
framed. He is likely to be paroled in 1998.