Cult Leader to Return to Face Child Abuse Charges

Fresh from an acquittal of charges that he threatened an Arkansas judge’s life, cult leader Tony Alamo is expected to surrender on child abuse charges today in the Santa Clarita Valley, where he built his controversial church more than 20 years ago.

Alamo, who authorities claim has been a fugitive from the California charges since 1988, will surrender in Newhall Municipal Court and ask a judge to allow him to post a small amount of bail, said his attorney, Danny Davis.

Davis said the flamboyant evangelist denies that he was a fugitive from California authorities and is voluntarily returning to face the child abuse allegations before the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office begins extradition proceedings.

“He is appearing wholly voluntarily to establish some good faith and rapport with the prosecution and the court,” Davis said.

Alamo is charged with felony child abuse for allegedly directing followers to beat an 11-year-old boy. Prosecutors said the boy was struck with a wooden paddle more than 100 times at the now-defunct Saugus commune operated by the Holy Alamo Christian Church.

Authorities said that Alamo, 56, fled after charges were filed and for three years taunted authorities with letters, phone calls and broadcasts of his religious sermons on radio while he remained in hiding. Alamo has claimed through followers and attorneys that he left California not knowing he was wanted in connection with the charges.

Alamo was charged earlier this year with threatening to kill a federal judge who had awarded a $1.4-million judgment in a lawsuit filed by six former followers. Authorities said he made the threats during a telephone interview with a Fort Smith newspaper editor.

Alamo was arrested in July at a home in Tampa, Fla., where he had been living for months under a phony name. He was moved to Arkansas where he was acquitted in September after a trial in Fort Smith on the threat charge.

Alamo still faces other legal entanglements stemming from alleged federal Internal Revenue Service and labor violations in Arkansas, where he located many of his church’s holdings in the 1980s. Davis said his client was allowed to travel to California after posting two bonds totaling $450,000.

Bail in the child abuse case previously was set at $1 million, but Alamo will ask that it be reduced to $50,000, Davis said. The attorney said the evangelist cannot afford a higher amount, though Davis acknowledged that such a dramatic reduction is unlikely.

“He is surrendering with the belief that he is going into jail,” Davis said. Alamo founded his church in the 1960s when he and his wife would bring young drug abusers and alcoholics from the streets of Hollywood to the Saugus commune, then feed them and preach to them. At the height of his popularity, several hundred people lived at the commune. It is now boarded up and the IRS has filed liens against the property.

During Alamo’s court hearings in Tampa and Fort Smith this year, dozens of longtime followers attended and defended their leader. Davis declined to say how Alamo, who is nearly blind from glaucoma, is traveling from Arkansas, but said he does not expect him to be surrounded by many members of his church.

“In terms of followers or flock, I don’t anticipate much more than my client,” Davis said.