Does the name Tony Alamo ring a bell? It should. The controversial evangelist, now 74 years old, has been making headlines for more than 25 years.
The flashy Alamo was born Bernie Lazar Hoffman in small town Missouri. Jewish by birth, Alamo married Edith Opal Horn, who was also Jewish. Alamo claims to have converted to Christianity after a super natural experience; after the conversion, he referred to himself as “a completed Jew.” Soon thereafter, he changed his name to Tony Alamo and Edith’s name to Sue Alamo. With a new religion and new names, Sue and Tony began their ministry.
Alamo Ministries grew quickly, expanding into other arenas and becoming a virtual empire worth an estimated $60 million in the 1980s. Those actions attracted the attention of the Department of Labor and the IRS, both of which instituted actions against his assortment of companies. Alamo appealed his DOL case all the way to the Supreme Court in 1985 and lost. That same year, the IRS retroactively revoked the tax exempt status for Alamo’s “church” for the years 1977 to 1980. The matter stayed in court for seven years. Eventually, the IRS seized “church” property in order to satisfy outstanding tax obligations in the millions.
Nonetheless, Alamo didn’t learn his lesson. Nearly ten years later, Alamo was convicted of filing a false federal income tax return and failing to file tax returns for three years. Income for the years in which he did not file is estimated to have been as high as $9 million. Much of the income came from a stint in the fashion industry where Alamo designed special denim jackets and accessories reportedly for such celebrities as Mr. T, Bono and Springsteen (a quick peek on eBay this evening revealed only one bid for any Alamo designs – and that bid was 99 cents).
In 1994, Alamo was sentenced to a fine of $550,000 and a maximum of six years in federal prison, he only served four of those years. One of the requirements of his release is particularly notable: he was ordered to return the remains of his deceased wife to members of her family. When his wife died of cancer years earlier, Alamo claimed she would be resurrected and kept her body on display in a crystal crypt on his dining room table. During the federal raid on his church compound, he had ordered his followers to hide her body. As part of the condition of his release, his followers turned the body over to Susan’s family, sixteen years after her death.
While convicted on the tax charges, Alamo was charged but not convicted of child abuse, an allegation that has come back to haunt him again. While prosecutors did drop the initial abuse charges filed in 1990, Alamo lost a civil suit worth millions by the family of the alleged child victim.
Now, he is accused of marrying off girls as young as age 12; he has reportedly stated that girls as young as 10 can give consent so long as they have reached puberty. Alamo claims he never promoted sexual abuse but does believe there’s a mandate from the Bible for young girls to marry. He said:
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.
Six girls were taken from the compound in the most recent raid in September. Alamo has accused the feds of impropriety, saying:
They (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 claims that the allegations against him are nothing but spitefulness and revenge for his beliefs. He is staunchly anti-Catholic and believes that the White House has subversive ties to both the Vatican and the United Nations. He told the AP:
Where do these allegations stem from? The anti-Christ government. The Catholics don’t like me because I have cut their congregation in half. They hate true Christianity.
Apparently, others support these beliefs. Alamo claims that traffic on his web site has increased more than ten times and that his salary as a minister is paid for by donations. He has refused to reveal the identity of the donors, despite repeated requests.
The last federal trial of Alamo was nothing short of a circus. Stay tuned to see what happens this time…
Author’s note: My generation is showing! Earlier in the piece, when I referred to Bono, I meant, you know, Bono, from U2. However, what I had not realized is that the “Bono” in my sources was Sonny Bono (I kid you not). Sorry for any confusion!
Letter_to_Tony_Alamo.Alberto Rivera speaks. I challenge you to listen to this man and then call him a phony. Nury Rivera came forward with conviction and courage Monday on international radio, saying her husband was assassinated by the evil Jesuit Order. “They poisoned him and I am 100 per cent sure of that,” said the widow of the late high level Jesuit priest, Fr. Alberto Rivera, killed in the early 1990’s after defecting from Vatican treachery and trying to tell the truth about the real intentions and satanic practices of the Jesuit Order.