6 children in Ark. custody after raid on compound By JON GAMBRELL 2 hours, 32 minutes ago
Six minors have been temporarily placed in state custody as part of a child porn investigation after a raid on a ministry run by a man who says "consent is puberty" when it comes to sex, officials said Sunday.
The children will be in the custody of the Arkansas Department of Human Services as investigators interview them, state police spokesman Bill Sadler said in a statement.
Sadler didn't say how long the interviews would last, but did say that courts would decide the children's status in the event of any "long-term separation" from the property of the Tony Alamo Christian Ministries in rural Fouke.
He did not say how old the children were, but an e-mail that authorities inadvertently sent to media members last week referred to 12-, 13- and 14-year-old girls.
The move comes after a raid Saturday by more than 100 federal and state authorities. Investigators said their two-year probe into allegations of child pornography and abuse focused on convicted tax evader Tony Alamo and his ministry, described by its critics as a cult.
Alamo claimed in a telephone interview with The Associated Press on Saturday that the investigation was part of a federal push to legalize same-sex marriage while outlawing polygamy. He also said for girls having sex, "consent is puberty."
News of the raid brought Anthony Justin Lane, 34, into Fouke from his job roofing in nearby Texarkana, hoping for some word about his family.
Lane said he has been trying for 10 years to reunite with his children, who belong to Alamo's ministry. Lane said he saw a 13-year-old girl marry a man of about 40 just before he was kicked out of the church for asking too many questions.
Lane hired a lawyer and said that he is trying to subpoena his wife, but that it remains difficult as she moves among Alamo's churches in Arkansas and California.
Lane said he last saw his oldest daughter, who would now be 13, in 2005. She offered him a pamphlet as he sat in his car reading a newspaper outside Alamo's church in Fort Smith in 2005. When Lane told her he was her father, he said, she ran off.
He has received only a few photos since then of the 13-year-old, an 11-year-old daughter and a 9-year-old son from a relative. His longtime girlfriend was pregnant with the boy when Lane said he was expelled from the church for questioning its practices.
"I see pictures of those kids and I feel robbed — robbed of being a father," Lane told reporters.
"I keep laying it in the Lord's hands and hoping he'll have mercy on my children and protect them," he said.
Authorities' search of the Fouke complex ended after midnight Saturday, and Sadler said officials had no plans to search the buildings again. Authorities have not indicated any plans to search other ministry locations.
Sunday afternoon, a van ferried members back and forth from a nearby 15-acre compound to the church on U.S. 71. Two women, one pushing a stroller, entered the building along with several children. A man at the door told reporters that "no visitors" would be allowed in for the services.
U.S. Attorney Bob Balfe declined to comment when asked whether an arrest warrant had been issued for Alamo or other members of his church. Balfe said before the raid that he expected a warrant to be issued for the 74-year-old leader.
As fog lifted Sunday morning from Fouke, no police cruisers blocked the dead-end drive up to Alamo's compound, as they had Saturday evening. Alamo's house, an L-shaped ranch home, sat empty with decorative bars over its windows. A black Cadillac Escalade was parked in the carport. The red-and-blue canopy of a carnival carousel could be seen from behind the home.
Peacocks walked past the house, where the public road ends. Two gravel roads led off to either side, one winding its way back into the compound, the other off to a basketball court where an RV sat parked. Black cattle gates blocked entry to the roads.
Other homes with brick fronts sat throughout the compound. Some didn't have exterior siding, while others appeared to be mobile homes parked on cinderblocks. Uniformed security guards patrolled the grounds and sat near the gates. None carried a pistol, though Purvis said some have in the past.
A worker mowed the lawn in front of the compound and church Sunday afternoon as television news trucks passed by. A guard stationed there declined to comment and said no one was available to talk to reporters.
Alamo and his late wife Susan were street preachers along Hollywood's Sunset Strip in 1966 before forming a commune near Saugus, Calif. Susan Alamo died of cancer in 1982; Alamo claimed she would be resurrected and kept her body on display for six months while their followers prayed.
Alamo was convicted of tax-related charges in 1994 after the IRS said he owed the government $7.9 million. He served four years in prison.
Prosecutors in the tax case argued before sentencing that Alamo was a flight risk and a polygamist who preyed on married women and girls in his congregation.
The Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors the activities of extremist groups in the U.S., describes Alamo's ministry as a cult that opposes homosexuality, Catholicism and the government.
Arkansas official: Children seized were in danger Tuesday, September 23, 2008
By ANDREW DeMILLO, Associated Press Writer
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. —
A state official says six girls removed from an evangelical compound over the weekend were taken into custody because they were in immediate danger. "We did make the decision to remove the children that we felt were in harm's way or in imminent danger," said Arkansas Department of Human Services spokeswoman Julie Munsell.
Investigators have been interviewing the children from the Tony Alamo Christian Ministries complex, which was raided Saturday by state and federal agents looking for evidence that children were molested.
Munsell said the state must decide by Tuesday to either ask a Miller County judge to grant the state temporary custody or return the children to their families.
To continue to hold the children, the state has to petition a court for custody. A probable cause hearing has to be held within five days of the petition. The hearing would be conducted in private as a juvenile matter.
State officials are now trying to identify the parents of some of the children and are trying to sort through calls the agency has received from people claiming to be their guardians.
"We've been fielding lots of phone calls from relatives, some claiming to be parents and some claiming to be extended family," Munsell said. "We are asking for those relatives or those claiming to be parents to present identification so we can match the children to those who have the parental right."
Tony Alamo told The Associated Press in an interview Saturday that no child pornography was generated at the ministry but that the age of consent is puberty when it comes to sex. He said he didn't promote marriage of underage girls.
Munsell said the youngest of the six girls in custody is 10 years old and the oldest is 17. Munsell said she did not know how many other children were at the complex beside nine that were interviewed.
A child psychologist not involved in the Alamo case said that investigators will have to be careful interviewing the minors, particularly because some of them may have been taught to believe that any abuse that may have occurred was not wrong.
"If they don't believe it was abusive, that may be truly what their reality is at this point," said Dr. Janice Church, assistant director of the Family Treatment Program at Arkansas Children's Hospital. "It's going to take a lot of cautious interviewing and careful relationship-building just to get them to distinguish between reality and what they may have been programmed or taught to believe."
Pulaski County Prosecutor Larry Jegley, who is not involved in the case, said the biggest obstacle in handling abuse cases like the Alamo case is getting children to talk in detail about what happened without traumatizing them again.
"You want to get good usable information from the children, but by the same token you wouldn't want to exacerbate the situation by questioning them over and over again," Jegley said.
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