Tony Alamo
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- For the other similarly-named fashion-related entity, see Tony Lama.
Tony Alamo (born 1934 as Bernie Lazar Hoffman), a controversial American preacher, singer, entrepreneur and evangelist. He runs a fundamentalist organization particularly critical of Roman Catholicism and believes the Pope to be the Antichrist. He was brought up as a Jew, of Romanian parents. As a result, he has placed an emphasis on converting Jews. He also created and manufactured a line of Tony Alamo-brand sequined denim jackets, a business that eventually landed him in jail after being convicted of tax evasion.[1] Alamo's followers distribute his writings by placing tracts on car windshields in parking lots.
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[edit] Biography
Born in 1934 in Joplin, Missouri, United States, in 1966 he married former Arkansas resident Edith Opal Horn (at Las Vegas), nine years his elder, who later became known as Susan Alamo. She had been an actress, and he took Alamo as a stage name for his singing career. Both had a strong interest in show business. She delivered the sermons on the Alamos' syndicated TV program during the 1970s, while Tony appeared to sing a gospel song. She died on April 8, 1982, to cancer, and he claimed that she would be resurrected.
In 1984 Alamo married Birgetta Oyllenhammer, owner of a clothing design and manufacturing company in Southern California.
In 1985 Alamo targeted the Pope and then-president Ronald Reagan. "Did you know that the Pope and Ronald Reagan are a couple of Anti-Christ Devils and that they are selling us all down the drain?" asked a tract entitled Genocide. A federal grand jury in Memphis, Tennessee, charged Alamo with filing a false income tax return in 1985 and failing to file returns the following three years.
He then married Elizabeth Amrhein. After a custody battle, they lost control of her children.
In 1989, he fled Saugus after he was charged with abusing the 11 yr old child of a follower at the group commune in Santa Clarita Valley, and eluded capture. Alamo has contended that he was being persecuted by a "legal Mafia." He said:
"I favor spanking children; you know that. It says so in the Bible. People have to decide whether to do what the Lord says or the state."
Alamo issued orders over a speaker phone, listing each of the child's transgressions and dictated how many times to paddle the child. The child could not sit down without a pillow for 2-3 weeks. Five of his followers were also charged. (Los Angeles Times, 4/15/89)
In February 1991, Alamo ordered his followers to bring along his wife's body when they evacuated the Tony and Susan Alamo Christian Foundation compound in Crawford County, Arkansas. The compound was about to be raided by federal marshals in the wake of a civil lawsuit against Alamo.
Alamo was ultimately arrested on tax-related charges and was convicted in 1994. He completed a six-year federal sentence, and then went to a halfway house in Texarkana.
Alamo's followers sometimes distribute his writings publicly. The tracts -- often in the form of a six "page" trifold pamphlet filled with relatively small type, have been found placed in the windshields of cars in shopping centers, for instance. The tracts predict impending doom and armageddon and invite the reader to accept Jesus as his or her savior. Tracts currently being distributed include a picture of Alamo circa 1986.
[edit] References
- ^ "Jury Convicts an Evangelist in Tax Evasion", New York Times, June 12, 1994
[edit] External links
- Tony Alamo ministries
- Factnet Message Board---Ex-members accounts of abuse in the Alamo organization
- Tony Alamo's Secrets EXPOSED!, blog critical of Alamo and his organization
- Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture
- Topix.net Forum--Local news and comments from Fouke residents
- Tony Alamo in his own words
- Nailing Tony Alamo (An RC response)
- Is He a Prophet, Promoter or Profiteer?
- Religion & Crime / "Satanic Conspiracy" Series #009
- Dept. of Labor decision against Alamo Foundation
