Evangelist raised towns' doubts

MULBERRY - People had harsh words for Tony Alamo on Sunday in Crawford County where the evangelist who is now targeted in a federal child pornography probe once had a tightly controlled ministry compound.

Gerald Graham, at the Kountry Xpress store in Mulberry, saidnot too many people in the area think highly of Alamo.

"He may have a little support, but it's not the consensus," Graham said. "He tried to buffalo people with his religion, but you could tell he was just out for himself."

Led by the U.S. Justice Department, Arkansas authorities raided the Tony Alamo Ministries compound in Fouke on Saturday as part of a two-year child pornography investigation.

The U.S. attorney's office said an arrest warrant will be issued for Alamo, 74, whose controversial, multistate ministry was called a hate group in 2007 by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

On Sunday, Graham recalledhow Alamo "pulled that stunt with keeping his wife's body up there at the compound, but you could see right through him," he said. "A scam artist is all he is."

After Alamo's wife, Susan, died in 1982 of cancer, he refused to bury her body, claiming she'd be resurrected.

He kept her body on display at the Dyer compound on Georgia Ridge Mountain until 1991 when he ordered church members toremove the coffin before a federal raid.

U.S. marshals took possession of the property to settle a judgment on behalf of a former church member and his family who claimed Alamo had violated federal labor laws. In 1995, Susan Alamo's estranged daughter, Christian Coie, won a suit to obtain her mother's remains.

In 1994, Alamo was convicted of tax evasion and sentenced to six years in prison. After he was paroled in 1998, he moved his ministry to Fouke in Miller County.

Longtime Dyer resident Geneva Evans said Tony and Susan Alamo initially had a small church in town before they established the compound a mile or two away on Georgia Ridge Mountain.

The compound was said to have a church, a store, living quarters and a small factory, Evans said. Guards stood along the property, she said.

"If you even drove up the road to the mountain, there were boys from the church looking at you like, 'What do you think you're doing up here?'" Evans said.

New Bethel Pastor Melvin Bookout said he was somewhatsurprised to hear the child pornography claims against Alamo, but he wasn't shocked that Alamo is in trouble again.

"I don't know him personally, but I get the impression he started with good intentions, but then somewhere along the way it got perverted," Bookout said.

The Sunday 3 p.m. service at the Tony Alamo Christian Church at 4401 Windsor Drive in Fort Smith went on as usual. About a dozen people, including some small children, arrived at the church for the service. The sanctuary seats several hundred.

A band warmed up inside the sanctuary while a few people lingered in the foyer, decorated with photographs of Tony Alamo.

A large map of the world hung on another wall of the foyer and was covered with pins showing the locations of Alamo followers around the world.

A reporter who showed up to hear Sunday's message was escorted out of the church.

"This isn't a three-ring circus," the escort said.

Information for this article was provided by David Hughes of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

Front Section, Pages 1, 2 on 09/22/2008