A woman who says she was a child bride of evangelist Tony Alamo told jurors on Wednesday that the minister had so many partners that he had to schedule when he would have sex with them.
The woman, now 30, said she was a third-generation Alamo follower into adulthood — until the Arkansas-based pastor took an eight-year-old as his latest bride. At one point, the woman said, Alamo told her graphically how he fondled the girl as she held a stuffed animal — and she raised concerns about his actions.
“He told me to shut up and that I shouldn’t question what ‘the Lord told me to do,’” the woman said.
Federal prosecutors accuse Alamo, 74, of transporting five girls across state lines for sex between 1994 and 2005.
The woman who testified on Wednesday said she traveled to California, Tennessee and West Virginia when she was underage to be available to Alamo.
Defense lawyers said in their opening statement on Tuesday that girls crisscrossed the country while working for the ministry. Chores for a “bona fide religious group” were not a federal offense, they said.
On the stand, the 30-year-old woman said she was married to Alamo at age 15 after he rejected a request from a boy her same age to marry her. She said Alamo told her family that the Lord had told him to take her as his wife, and that she feared her she and her relatives would be shunned if she did not submit.
“We didn’t have anywhere to go,” said the woman, whose parents and grandparents were also Alamo followers.
After she agreed, the witness said, Alamo took her hand asked if she would take him as her lawfully wedded husband. He kissed her on the forehead and, three days later, had sex with her for the first time.
The “marriage” took place at Alamo’s compound but was not formally registered with the state.
Defense lawyers say the government has targeted the ministry for prosecution and Alamo says the trial is part of a Vatican-led conspiracy against him.
“This investigation, this prosecution was fueled by prejudice the government and law enforcement have against Tony Alamo’s church because of its practices,” said Don Ervin, the defense team’s leader.
Alamo served four years in prison on a tax evasion charge after the Internal Revenue Service said he owed US$7.9 million. Prosecutors allege that some girls were brought to Alamo for sex while he was awaiting the 1994 trial.
Wednesday’s first witness said how often Alamo would schedule sex with his female followers varied on where he was and how many were with him when he was traveling. When Alamo was arrested in Arizona last September to face the sex-crime charges, federal agents said he had several women traveling with him, none of whom was a minor.
‘CROSSING THE LINE’: China’s embassy in Seoul criticized US Forces Korea Commander General Xavier Brunson, asking if his ‘hostile’ remarks were authorized by Washington South Korea and the US are in talks over recent public remarks by the commander of US Forces Korea, Seoul’s presidential office said yesterday, after the comments drew sharp criticism from China. In a recent podcast interview, US Forces Korea Commander General Xavier Brunson described South Korea as “the dagger in the heart of Asia” from China’s east coast, prompting the Chinese embassy in Seoul to say that he had “truly crossed the line.” The interview came amid growing speculation that Washington might seek to expand the role of US Forces Korea in countering the growing regional influence of China, a key
Through the noise of rushing papers and whirring belts at a print factory in Kyoto, two creators watch their photo essay come to life in broadsheet form — part of an effort to win new audiences in the age of artificial intelligence (AI). Despite the decline of the publishing industry, self-publication and handmade “zine” magazines are growing in popularity in Japan, reflecting the nation’s enduring love of paper in the digital era. While speaking to Agence France-Presse at the plant, his hands black with ink, one of the creators, Kazuma Obara, said: “I think [paper] is a medium that engages all five
Australian researchers have trained lab-grown brain cells on a silicon computer chip to play the 1990s shooter game Doom and said they are just scratching the surface of what the neurons could be capable of doing. It is the science-fiction work of biotech boffins at Cortical Labs, who researched and developed the technology that harnesses the workings of the brain’s networking system. Each so-called “biological computer” contains about 200,000 living human brain cells, grown from stem cells that were harvested from blood donations. Having mastered the simple computer game Pong, where a paddle is moved up and down to send a ball
France experienced its hottest spring on record, the French weather service said on Tuesday, after an exceptional early heat wave that also broke highs for the season in England and Wales. Meteo-France said the average nationwide temperature over March to May was 13.8°C — about 1.7°C above the norm, and surpassing records set in 2011 and 2020. “The warmest spring since records began in 1900,” it said in a bulletin. All three months were warmer than average, but the onset of an “unprecedented heatwave” late last month pushed the mercury to highs typically seen at the height of the summer. “Our country had never
RSS