Evangelists Tony and Susan Alamo in better days. Click to enlarge.
Commuters pass it every day on their way to work. Neighbors have reported odd sightings and have been threatened for getting too close. Vans come and go two or three times a day. There is 24-hour security and large white fences that block the view of the housing complex near the highway.
Up Sierra Highway past Davenport Road in Agua Dulce sits the storied Tony Alamo Christian Church.
The church was deemed a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center because of its anti-Catholic teachings.
Rumors of brainwashing and polygamy have surrounded the ministry since its establishment in the 1960s. Its founder, 77-year-old Tony Alamo, was sentenced Nov. 13, 2009, to 175 years in prison for trafficking underage girls across state lines for sex.
A call to the church hotline reveals: “Pastor Alamo is currently serving the ministries from prison, writing scripture and sending it here to us, along with providing salvation for the terrorists and murderers in prison with him.”
Public records list Twenty First Century Holiness Tabernacle Inc. as the owner of the property where the church complex is located. The company also owns a parcel of land and some houses behind the Halfway House Café, farther down Sierra Highway.
The company was founded and run by Tony Alamo, and it is the name most of his properties are under today.
Public records also show the property is managed by Rodi Pollock Pettker Galbraith, a Los Angeles law firm. Company officials refused to comment about their involvement with Tony Alamo and his businesses.
Locals describe it as a suspicious place. No one knows what is going on behind closed doors, except for the religious followers.
Neighbors report that vans pass by the Halfway House at least once a day at around the same time, but the property looks to be vacant with the exception of a standard-looking white Ford van and an old station wagon. Blinds in all of the houses are drawn, and there is no movement or noise.
Waitress Sally Moore reports witnessing strange things since she started working at the Halfway House.
“My son used to play with some of the kids who lived back there,” said Moore, 50. “All of them were home-schooled and I never saw any girls, only teenage boys.”
Although her son never reported any strange occurrences, Moore never let him enter any of the Alamo homes.
“About a year ago a young girl ‘escaped’ with a man,” she said. “They sat in the corner of the café for about an hour to wait for a taxi. Another middle-aged man showed up and tried to convince the girl to come back to say goodbye to the rest of the people at the complex. In the middle of a heavy rainstorm, the two people went outside to wait for the cab, arguing with the middle-aged man until they finally left.”
Twenty-four hour security keeps watch over people entering or exiting church property.
Lauren Weightman, 21, of Agua Dulce, was riding a quad one day on the mountains behind her house, which sits near the back of the church property. She ran out of gas and continued to walk down the mountain to meet someone who had brought her gas for the quad.
“A man popped out of the bushes,” she said. “I didn’t hear him coming, so it scared me. He told me to get off the church’s property because I was trespassing. I thought it was weird he was out in the middle of nowhere.”
Neighbors report séances held at the late hours of the night.
“I went outside and heard voices, so my family and I went to check on it,” said Kaitlyn Clunich. “We got too close, and they warned us if we didn’t leave and go back in our house, they would call the police.”
Child Abuse Claims
The church complex was raided in 1988 by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s detectives who were investigating reports of child abuse. The deputies found three boys who were subjected to the abuse and returned them to their fathers who had been previously excommunicated by the church.
Victims have come forward to appear on the Oprah Winfrey show to share their stories of Alamo and the hellish environment he created.
Victims told Winfrey they were made to be Alamo’s “spiritual wives” at the tender ages of 8 to 12. They said they were sexually assaulted, drugged and beaten by Alamo until they escaped.
Tony Alamo started his ministry in Hollywood in 1969 with his late wife, Susan Alamo. Born Bernie Lazar Hoffman, Alamo has been in and out of jail since that time for an assortment of crimes including tax evasion, theft, trafficking of underage girls, child abuse, illegal weapons charges, violating the Fair Labor Act, and he has been accused of polygamy.
Persons at the Tony Alamo prayer and information hotline declined to comment on Alamo’s conviction on 10 counts of transporting underage girls across state lines for sex. They did, however, comment on why there is 24-hour security.
“There have been shootings and violent crimes against members of the church and the church’s property,” a spokesperson said.
Alamo’s lawyers have indicated they plan to appeal his verdict and to prove his innocence.
Read Tony Alamo’s story in his own words here: http://www.scvhistory.com/scvhistory/alamo-alamo.htm
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2 Comments
LUNATIC
by Tony Alamo
“And when [the disciples] were come to the multitude, there came to [JESUS] a certain man, kneeling down to HIM, and saying, LORD, have mercy on my son: for he is lunatic, and sore vexed: for ofttimes he falls into the fire, and often into the water. And I brought him to your disciples, and they could not cure him. Then JESUS answered and said, O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? how long shall I suffer you? BRING HIM HERE TO ME. And JESUS rebuked the devil; and he departed out of him: and the child was cured from that very hour.
“Then came the disciples to JESUS apart, and said, Why could not we cast him out? And JESUS said unto them, Because of your unbelief [in CHRIST’S ability]” (Matthew 17:14-20). They asked, “Why could not WE cast him out?” We, the disciples, can do nothing without HIM!
In John 15:5, JESUS said, “I AM the VINE, you are the branches: He that abides in ME, and I in him, the same shall bring forth much fruit: for without ME you can do nothing. If a man abide not in ME, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned. If you abide in ME, and MY WORDS abide in you, you shall ask what you will, and it shall be done unto you. Herein is MY FATHER GLORIFIED, that you bear much fruit; so shall you be MY disciples” (John 15:5-8).
JESUS tells HIS disciples that they couldn’t cast the lunatic devil out of the young man because they did not believe in the LORD’S ability to do it, instead believing mostly in their own ability to do it (Matthew 17:20). However, JESUS said to them in John 15:5, “Without ME you can do nothing.”
The disciples fled when the soldiers came to get JESUS at the Mount of Olives.1 They all hid until after the resurrection.2 It was after the resurrection and ascension that they had enough faith to cast out the lunatic devil. But they knew that JESUS was the GOD who created everything, who destroyed the entire world with water, destroyed Egypt with ten major plagues, opened the Red Sea, saved Israel, and put the entire Egyptian army to death.3
No one can trust solely in themselves. We, all of us, must trust in JESUS.4 “For verily I say unto you, If you have faith as a grain of mustard seed [in ME and in MY NAME], you shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible to you” (Matthew 17:20).
Always bring what you need or want to JESUS.5 Again, JESUS said, “Without ME you can do nothing” (John 15:5). This means we must go to JESUS to accomplish everything, to do everything.
Webster’s Dictionary says a lunatic is someone who is insane, full of madness. GOD says the nations and their leaders in these last days are lunatics, insane, full of madness. “The burden of the WORD of the LORD for Israel, saith the LORD, which stretcheth forth the heavens, and layeth the foundation of the earth, and formeth the spirit of man within him. Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling unto all the people round about, when they shall be in the siege both against Judah and against Jerusalem. And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it. In that day, saith the LORD, I will smite every horse [symbolic of nations] with astonishment, and his rider [the nations’ leaders] with MADNESS [which is lunacy, insanity, craziness]” (Zechariah 12:1-4). GOD has done it! Government officials are e-mailing pictures of their private parts and posting them on the Internet. They are the biggest liars in the world. They promote homosexuality, lesbianism, same-sex marriage, and the murder of infants, and use their dead, aborted babies to make face cream for women, who are also lunatics, to smear on their faces. The more they fight GOD, the more insane they will become. Lunatics, madmen, insane men, are trying to run the world. GOD is folding up all nations and making the leaders lunatics.
I don’t like the new Bibles because they say lunatics are epileptics, when it is really demonic spirits inside humans. They also say we are to obey the homosexuals in government, which GOD forbids,6 and state we should condone the murder of millions of human lives!7 They are lunatics!
GOD continues, “And I will open MINE eyes upon the house of Judah, and will smite every horse [nation] of the people with blindness” (Zechariah 12:4). Webster’s says “lunatic” is also “utterly foolish.” They are pot smokers, cocaine snorters, heroin addicts, drunks, liars, vicious perverts, murderers and thieves, and they are making the world a wilderness, filled with anti-CHRIST, anti-GOD anti-CHRISTIANS.8
In John 16:7, JESUS told HIS disciples, “It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the COMFORTER will not come unto you. [If I don’t go away, you will not be able to receive power, the BAPTISM of the HOLY SPIRIT, WHICH IS THE POWER OF GOD to be able to do the work of GOD in you. If I do not go away, GOD will not be in you to do HIS work in you.]” We will be judged by our works (Revelation 20:12-13).9
If anyone tells you that we are not to bring forth fruit unto repentance, they are liars, and they are not of GOD! When JESUS ascended back to Heaven, HE became the LIFE-GIVING SPIRIT (1 Corinthians 15:45-57).10 Until this happened, HE was not able to live in us. HE said, “Now I AM with you, but I will be in you with MY FATHER. WE ARE the COMFORTER.”11 JESUS is the fullness of the GODHEAD BODILY (Colossians 2:9). When HE is in us, we are this as well (Ephesians 3:14-19). 12
Now we are able to bring any lunatic to JESUS! Now we are able to have JESUS living and working in us!
hmm my brother stayed there for like a year and I use to visit him and his daughter, that being said his daughter was kept from him from the morning all the way until the night, it was a very strange environment indeed, and talking to members I found that they never listened to even the radio, no television and they could never leave the grounds, not even to shop, visit the beach or anything… everything was provided to them and the only outings were to evangelize in south central LA. Everything they did or heard was by the direction of Tony or his cronies! Unheard of in today’s society, but they give all their monies to his ministry, they do not work, and he provides for them everything he says they need and they think its great!
Very peculiar, and I am glad my brother escaped!