Tony Alamo—you know, that odd Christian minister whose compound was raided back in September—is now facing eight more sex charges in his criminal case. The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reports:
An indictment unsealed Tuesday accuses evangelist Tony Alamo of eight more counts of transporting underage girls across state lines for sexual purposes over the past 14 years, including at least one violation that occurred while Alamo was completing a prison sentence at a halfway house in Texarkana.
The original indictment against the 74-year-old leader of Tony Alamo Christian Ministries, a multistate ministry with headquarters in southwest Arkansas, accused him of transporting a girl across state lines in 2004 and 2005. The new charges, contained in a superseding indictment handed up by a grand jury Nov. 19, add eight counts involving four more girls from 1994 through 2005.
A court clerk entered a note in the court record last week disclosing that the new indictment had been handed up, but it remained under seal until Tuesday, when U. S. Magistrate Judge Barry Bryant entered an order accepting Alamo’s plea of innocent to the charges. Alamo entered the plea through his attorney, John Wesley Hall Jr. of Little Rock, in a court filing last week.
On Tuesday, Hall said the charges are “more of the same stuff, and we’ll defend it the same way.” “It’s all just the same kind of stuff put out by the anti-Alamo groups,” Hall said.
More news and opinions than at a Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.