Speaker 1: Also media.
Speaker 2: Oh, welcome back to Behind the Bastards. We're all doing
Speaker 2: just so good. Uh, just so good. I'm talking about
Speaker 2: Jesus grifters, and there Jesus grifting with one of my
Speaker 2: very favorite people and guests, the great Samantha McVeigh. Samantha,
Speaker 2: how are you doing?
Speaker 3: I am here, you're here.
Speaker 2: Yes, you've just been talking about how how tired and
Speaker 2: slightly broken we all are already this year.
Speaker 3: Uh huh h yeah, but hey, we exist.
Speaker 2: We're still alive technically, you know, not in the ways
Speaker 2: that matter, maybe, but like technically you know, yes, yeah,
Speaker 2: just like well, actually not at all. Like Susan Alamo,
Speaker 2: because she's just dead as hell. She is super fucking dead.
Speaker 3: You told me a few times that she is good
Speaker 3: and dead. She is.
Speaker 2: She is real dead. Oh you are. I don't know
Speaker 2: if you're ready for the amount of dead. This lady
Speaker 2: is just the deadest, uh, Samantha, are you ready to
Speaker 2: get back into it?
Speaker 3: Let's go.
Speaker 2: So you're a cult leader and your wife, the Lamb
Speaker 2: of God, has died, even though you both told everyone
Speaker 2: on your TV show God would protect her from that
Speaker 2: sort of pedestrian end because the world can't end unless
Speaker 2: you're both alive, right, So what do you do when
Speaker 2: she passes?
Speaker 1: On?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 4: Put?
Speaker 3: Yeah, you put sunglasses on her.
Speaker 2: You did guess weekend at Bernie's, And that's what they do.
Speaker 2: It's I you are correct, because basically what they do
Speaker 2: is he has her embalmed, He brings her corpse home
Speaker 2: and he late, yeah, yeah, he puts it on a
Speaker 2: table and he's going to have his followers pray over
Speaker 2: it for days on end. Right, that's the that's the plan.
Speaker 1: Here.
Speaker 3: Tell me she's in that white suit though, like she
Speaker 3: Lea's in that suit.
Speaker 2: No, she's in her wedding dress. Does that make it worse?
Speaker 2: Is that creepier or less creepy?
Speaker 3: That's just setting up for a haunting mm hmm, like unhaunted.
Speaker 2: Well, and the way it's described to me is he
Speaker 2: had he ordered them to dress her corpse in its
Speaker 2: wedding dress. So I don't think she came in that dress.
Speaker 2: He just makes his followers put her in it. It's
Speaker 2: not great.
Speaker 3: Did he did he did like remarry her like renewed
Speaker 3: vowels there too. I mean there's a lot that I'm I.
Speaker 2: Think he was waiting for her to be resurrected to
Speaker 2: do that.
Speaker 3: Right, Uh, you got to marry her for the fifth time, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he has the fourth or fifth time. Yeah. Now,
Speaker 2: I will admit that the relationship dynamics of the Alamos
Speaker 2: are a little bit murky to me, But my interpretation
Speaker 2: is that while she was alive, Susan did a lot
Speaker 2: of work to keep Tony on something that resembled an
Speaker 2: even keel. He's still doing some sex crimes, right, but
Speaker 2: a lot less than he will be once she dies.
Speaker 2: Because she is she's exerting some control to limit his behavior, right,
Speaker 2: And once she is gone, there is no one left
Speaker 2: to keep this man in check, and he loses his
Speaker 2: fucking mind. Like he goes from well not from zero,
Speaker 2: he's at like fifty five, but he goes up to
Speaker 2: like one hundred and twenty very quickly.
Speaker 3: I feel like he's just waiting for his moment though.
Speaker 3: Is it one of those things like yeah, now I'm
Speaker 3: doing this, this is it, this is my time, And
Speaker 3: then it just becomes trauma.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah for a lot of people. And it's going
Speaker 2: to start with some dead body related trauma because yeah,
Speaker 2: yeah it's gross. So he has Susan's body taken to
Speaker 2: the cult's dining room, and his followers are ordered to
Speaker 2: take shifts praying for her resurrection, so that there's people
Speaker 2: praying for her to be resurrected twenty four hours a day.
Speaker 2: Cult funds are used to engage in nearby florists to
Speaker 2: deliver flowers every day, probably to deal with the smell.
Speaker 3: Right, I was gonna ask about that, but you know, yeah, yeah, it's.
Speaker 2: Not great, Sam, it's not great. One remember later recalled
Speaker 2: to a reporter, I believe one percent that she was
Speaker 2: going to rise from the dead. On their local access
Speaker 2: TV show, Tony gave daily sermons promising his wife would
Speaker 2: be reborn any day now. It became a joke for
Speaker 2: local radio DJs, who reported on this while repeatedly playing
Speaker 2: wake Up Little Susie. That's some good DJ. That's some
Speaker 2: good radio DJ shade.
Speaker 3: I mean, yeah, you can yourself.
Speaker 2: No, you can just see how you'd cut this together
Speaker 2: though in like the HBO version of this story, you know,
Speaker 2: do a little montage or something. Unfortunately, it also gets
Speaker 2: very creepy, very fast, because one thing that Tony demands
Speaker 2: is he wants the children in the cult. He makes
Speaker 2: them cuddle with Susan's body at night. Yeah, I know
Speaker 2: this is this is bad.
Speaker 3: What again, he's serial killers?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Those those kids went through it. We'll say that much, right.
Speaker 2: One of them, Elijah Franco, weeks later said she smelled,
Speaker 2: she was cold and really really hard. She was dead,
Speaker 2: which I feel like we didn't need at the end there,
Speaker 2: but yeah, it's just good to reinforce that to yourself
Speaker 2: when you've been told for six months that she's alive.
Speaker 3: So was this doing an interview like, yeah, you're so
Speaker 3: like you slept with a dead body? Tell us about
Speaker 3: that experience you grew up with thom Sorry, yeah, no, Yeah, I.
Speaker 2: Think that that's basically what it was. Is like because
Speaker 2: eventually there are court cases and eventually there's prosecution, and
Speaker 2: a lot of these kids get out and then go
Speaker 2: talk to the media about like because these are the
Speaker 2: folks who were not they were true believers in that
Speaker 2: they were kids raised in this cult. But they also
Speaker 2: they're not converts. Right. If you grow up, you know,
Speaker 2: in a different religion somewhere, and you convert to something
Speaker 2: like this, you tend to stick with it for a
Speaker 2: long time, whereas a lot of these kids raised in this,
Speaker 2: like as soon as they can, Like, I'm getting the
Speaker 2: fuck out of this place. The fuck is wrong with
Speaker 2: these people and my parents Jesus. Yeah, so this goes on,
Speaker 2: This whole corpse thing goes on for six months.
Speaker 3: Oh, I was waiting for six days.
Speaker 2: No no, no, like a like a wildly long time,
Speaker 2: and the body was okay, no, no, no, it's not okay.
Speaker 2: It's it's very, very gross. Greta Allendorff writes that every
Speaker 2: day Susan remained dead, the children were beaten. So it's
Speaker 2: even worse than just the things about this that are
Speaker 2: obviously gross, because the kids are being physically punished for
Speaker 2: not bringing this woman back from the dead. Good cult stuff.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the.
Speaker 2: Dead lady.
Speaker 3: You know, I don't know what's supposed to happen.
Speaker 2: Well, she was supposed to come back to Tony.
Speaker 3: Like like by the kids like laying on her.
Speaker 2: Oh, I think something like that. I think something like that.
Speaker 3: Oh, this is where I need adult supervision. What the hell?
Speaker 2: What the fuck right? No, this is we are now
Speaker 2: in rarefied colt Air. We do a lot of cults,
Speaker 2: but this is some of the cultiest cult stuff we've
Speaker 2: ever culted on this podcast. Yeah, fascinating stuff, incredible work Tony. Eventually,
Speaker 2: and this is you know, you got to give him
Speaker 2: some credit for personal growth. He comes to accept that
Speaker 2: his wife is dead, right you know, oh yeah, I
Speaker 2: was joking. That's not great. I mean, I guess it is.
Speaker 2: But you don't have to give breaks Amos conceding, So
Speaker 2: he has his followers build an elaborate mausoleum for her,
Speaker 2: which included a grave for him. So apparently at this
Speaker 2: point he came to accept his own mortality. Now that
Speaker 2: susan And was gone, he began to adapt other parts
Speaker 2: of his life to this new reality, which ended with
Speaker 2: him launching a new and shockingly successful business for the ministry.
Speaker 2: You're not ready for wear this head, Samantha. I was
Speaker 2: not ready for where this head. This is a unique
Speaker 2: cult business, right. We talked about cult businesses a lot
Speaker 2: on this show. Restaurants are common, right, bands are weirdly common.
Speaker 2: You know, the Mansons tried to do that, right, you get,
Speaker 2: I mean, Tony Alamo does kind of that version of things. Uh,
Speaker 2: fucking David Koresh was a musician, you know, right. What's
Speaker 2: weird is like launching through your cult an incredibly popular
Speaker 2: fashion brand. That is beloved by the most famous people
Speaker 2: on earth, which is what Tony does next. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: shocking stuff.
Speaker 3: He launches a clothing brand.
Speaker 2: He does he does high fashion too. It's extremely successful.
Speaker 2: How successful. Yeah, it's Hollister. This is where Hollister comes from.
Speaker 2: Tony Alamo invented Hollister. No, so the the answer like,
Speaker 2: because Tony's got to ask himself, Hey, you know, as
Speaker 2: a pedophile cult leader who has just been reminded of
Speaker 2: his mortality, what's the next thing to do? And the answer,
Speaker 2: obviously is forced children to labor for free manufacturing high
Speaker 2: quality but dazzled denim vests and jackets for celebrities, which
Speaker 2: is exactly what he does. They are These have like
Speaker 2: in rhinestones and Swarovsky diamonds, like the La skyline on them,
Speaker 2: or like Nashville. They are the tackiest fucking jackets that
Speaker 2: have ever been made. I think some of them are
Speaker 2: stone wars of them are clearly like black denim or leather.
Speaker 2: Even they're not just denim, but there's a lot of denim. Yeah,
Speaker 2: this is this is by now we're in the eighties, right, maybe.
Speaker 3: Dazzel, but Dazzle did their thing. Yeah, so this makes sense,
Speaker 3: also is kind of horrifying. Yeah, who wore this?
Speaker 2: Oh? Everyone? So he designs each product himself and sells
Speaker 2: them under the brand name Tony Alamo of Nashville. And
Speaker 2: despite that name, their big market is in Hollywood, particularly
Speaker 2: rich and famous people who wanted clothing that delivered a
Speaker 2: little bit of Southern charm and credibility. Tony Alamo jackets
Speaker 2: took off initially with the Grand Ole Opry set, but
Speaker 2: in short order they become like the most desired fashion
Speaker 2: item in the music industry. According to an article by
Speaker 2: Lindy Fraser of The Chantel Clear, Alamo said he used
Speaker 2: children when he realized their quote hands were the perfect
Speaker 2: size to embellish the jackets with tiny rhinestones.
Speaker 3: Now why do they all say this?
Speaker 2: Given all of that, it might not surprise you to
Speaker 2: hear that one of the brand's biggest fans was a
Speaker 2: man famous for being responsible around small children. Have you
Speaker 2: guessed who it is?
Speaker 3: No, I can't.
Speaker 2: Michael Jackson. That's right, baby, And in fact, if you
Speaker 2: want the most famous touchstone, Michael Jackson wears a Tony
Speaker 2: Alamo jacket on the cover of Bad That's a Tony
Speaker 2: Alamo original. On the cover of Bad.
Speaker 3: There's so many things to this.
Speaker 2: Why Oh well, I think there's a couple of reasons why,
Speaker 2: given some things that we've learned about Michael in the
Speaker 2: intervening years. But it is when I realized it was
Speaker 2: that he the jacket from Bad was a Tony Alamo
Speaker 2: er blew my fucking mind.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's gonna take me a minute.
Speaker 2: That's gonna take a second. Right.
Speaker 3: The fact that that means he had to have sold
Speaker 3: so many more after the pot.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah. Oh. These are a massive brand. These
Speaker 2: are incredibly successful, and Michael is the most famous person
Speaker 2: on earth at this point in like the fucking mid
Speaker 2: early to mid eighties, so he is probably the most
Speaker 2: famous person to wear a Tony Alamo original. But he's
Speaker 2: got real competition. And I want to quote from an
Speaker 2: article on the brand in the La Times. He makes
Speaker 2: jackets for all the stars, said Shirley Blinner, a saleswoman
Speaker 2: at Twist, a boutique on Melrose Avenue, where three Alamo
Speaker 2: jackets were on sale last week for prices ranging from
Speaker 2: three hundred and sixty dollars to six hundred and eighty dollars.
Speaker 2: Blinner pointed to a display of photographs behind the cash
Speaker 2: register of mister T, Mike Tyson, Hulk Cogan, and Dolly Parton,
Speaker 2: all wearing what appeared to be a Lamo design jackets.
Speaker 3: I was waiting for her name, but by mister T
Speaker 3: to cut off gene.
Speaker 2: Mister T. Oh, oh my god, Samantha. I would not
Speaker 2: be doing my job as the host of this podcast
Speaker 2: if I did not show you the picture I have
Speaker 2: of mister T wearing a Tony Alamo original standing next
Speaker 2: to Tony Alamo himself. Hmmm, oh man, it is if
Speaker 2: you're a big mister T fan like I am, a
Speaker 2: harsh moment of the soul here look at them.
Speaker 3: Look at the two of them together.
Speaker 2: That him, that's him. That's Tony.
Speaker 3: Off brand like country musicians, like he looks like Haggard,
Speaker 3: Like the.
Speaker 2: Hell if Merle Haggard had let his drinking get even
Speaker 2: more away from him, right, like, yeah, if Merle Haggard
Speaker 2: had been doing his body weight in cocaine. Yeah. So
Speaker 2: there's this picture. They're both wearing these just I gotta say,
Speaker 2: hideous denim jackets like these are the Michael's you know,
Speaker 2: the jacket from Bad looks good on Michael, you know,
Speaker 2: like that's that's a that's a that's a look iconic.
Speaker 2: I do not understand these denim jackets that mister T
Speaker 2: and Tony are wearing.
Speaker 3: Here again, mister T, I remember him with a cut
Speaker 3: off jean jacket, Like that's what I am picturing.
Speaker 4: When you say, mister it's like American. Yeah, no, it's
Speaker 4: not a huge leap, right, And this is mister T
Speaker 4: younger maybe certainly worst judgment. Let's all assume that modern
Speaker 4: mister T wouldn't make this same mistake. But yeah, the
Speaker 4: picture I've got, which will we'll put up that this
Speaker 4: will probably be the background of one of the parts
Speaker 4: of this episode. But it just says mister T pictured
Speaker 4: here with pastor Tony Alamo. Both are wearing Tony Alamo
Speaker 4: designer jackets, which are worn by thousands of actors, entertainers,
Speaker 4: recording artists, sports figures, presidents, politicians, kings, queens, princes, princesses,
Speaker 4: and others who are able to afford them. I don't
Speaker 4: know which presidents wore the these. I haven't found that information,
Speaker 4: but I can. I'm very curious.
Speaker 2: Prince Charleston, Queen Elizabeth has one of these things. But
Speaker 2: Queen Elizabeth had it because she would not buy a
Speaker 2: jacket if she didn't know child labor had gone into it.
Speaker 3: You know, that was the question. How is it market
Speaker 3: It was? It marketed as just a hands owned from
Speaker 3: this church.
Speaker 2: It's marketed with that line. Their little hands can put
Speaker 2: the ryanstones on best.
Speaker 3: The only way we could fit the tiny stones on
Speaker 3: there above the.
Speaker 2: Tag we don't pay the children.
Speaker 3: They pay us by Yeah, they pay us with their labor,
Speaker 3: you know, for with dead bodies.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, and cuddling with dead bodies. Now. In addition
Speaker 2: to jackets, Alamo's clothing line sold sharkskin boots, leopard skin jackets,
Speaker 2: and sequin gowns, often including Swarovski crystals and diamonds as
Speaker 2: a koutramas. To beyond that, his ministry expanded to control
Speaker 2: a string of gas stations in the area around the
Speaker 2: towns of Dire and Alma, Alabama. They ran a hog farm,
Speaker 2: grocery stores, and a concert venue, as well as a
Speaker 2: restaurant where a young Bill Clinton once watched Dolly Parton perform.
Speaker 2: The number of famous people who are just like bit
Speaker 2: parts in the fucking Tony Alamo story unreal.
Speaker 3: So did people not realize it was a cult. They
Speaker 3: just assumed it was just a foundation and a children's
Speaker 3: home or like a halfway house type of thing at
Speaker 3: the at this point.
Speaker 2: At this point, there are some people who have left.
Speaker 2: If you really wanted to look, you could find some
Speaker 2: al legations, right, but there's no lawsuits yet, no one
Speaker 2: like the the the There aren't any like major cases
Speaker 2: about like the worst things. There's this is right around
Speaker 2: the period of time where there are some lawsuits about them,
Speaker 2: like not paying workers, but the the worst stuff hasn't
Speaker 2: really come out yet. Sore that said, when it does,
Speaker 2: they keep selling the jackets. So I'm not letting anyone
Speaker 2: off the hook for the fucking jacket thing because they
Speaker 2: keep being a popular product even when he's on the
Speaker 2: run from the FBI as well done. Really yes, yes,
Speaker 2: it's amazing stuff.
Speaker 3: It is still named then jacket Jacket Company, and people like, yeah,
Speaker 3: I really need that. He's they're not gonna make it anymore.
Speaker 3: I have to have one. It's a little bit of addition, Sam.
Speaker 2: He think about it this way, if if Osama bin
Speaker 2: Laden had sewn had like been selling jinkos while he
Speaker 2: was on the run, I would have wanted a pair
Speaker 2: of those jinkos, the bin laden jinkosh my go.
Speaker 3: I mean, maybe you could resurrect him from the dead.
Speaker 3: All you gotta do is cuddle him.
Speaker 2: That's right, that's right.
Speaker 3: I think we can write this work for you.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna have to go to the sea. In his
Speaker 2: two thousand and five book My Life, Clinton described Tony
Speaker 2: Alamo as Roy Orbison on speed, a description that doesn't
Speaker 2: make a lot of sense to me, because we listened
Speaker 2: to him and he's not a fast singing or speaking guy.
Speaker 2: I don't know why he just yeah.
Speaker 3: Maybe he needs to speed, right. Oh no, that's what
Speaker 3: he sounds like.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what he sounds like. And he kind of
Speaker 2: sounds like a slower Johnny Cash to me, who also
Speaker 2: sucks at singing. Anyway, I don't know why Bill describes
Speaker 2: him this way.
Speaker 3: Maybe we heard him preach.
Speaker 2: I have heard him preach, and.
Speaker 3: So he's still that slow.
Speaker 2: He's faster, but he's not like a as somebody's watched
Speaker 2: a lot of like preachers who are definitely coke feeds.
Speaker 2: He's not like that fast right spirit. And I was
Speaker 2: gonna say, maybe Bill Clinton doesn't know much about speed,
Speaker 2: but Bill Clinton definitely knew a lot about speed. Young
Speaker 2: Bill couldn't do it. Knew a little bit about speed.
Speaker 2: I'll tell you that much right now.
Speaker 3: He knows a lot of things.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he knows a lot of things you shouldn't. So
Speaker 2: Tony may not have been on speed, but he did
Speaker 2: demand speed from his laborers, who, from early childhood on
Speaker 2: were dosed with vitamins and massive amounts of caffeine in
Speaker 2: order to meet tight labor deadlines. While he lounged by
Speaker 2: the heart shaped pool he and Susan had purchased with
Speaker 2: his new child brides. We'll get to that, his follower
Speaker 2: slept in sleeping bags on the floor in crowded meeting rooms.
Speaker 2: Workers owned five dollars a day. Shifts could last as
Speaker 2: long as twenty hours. I think there were just twelve
Speaker 2: to fifteen on average. But you know, when there's a
Speaker 2: big when mister T needs a bunch of jackets, you know,
Speaker 2: you make that shit happen.
Speaker 3: You gotta make it happen.
Speaker 2: You've got to make it.
Speaker 3: Calls, you got show coming come.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So, within a few years of Susan passing, Tony
Speaker 2: started seeking companionship, and while Susan had to begin been
Speaker 2: like ten years older than him. Chris's experience that Susan's
Speaker 2: daughter had been an early because again Tony rapes her, right,
Speaker 2: and that was an when she's like fourteen or fifteen,
Speaker 2: that was an early warning that Tony's preferences skewed much younger.
Speaker 2: And he starts chaking taking child brides. I think he
Speaker 2: starts with sixteen seventeen year olds, but like every year,
Speaker 2: he'll go down a couple of years in terms of
Speaker 2: like what's acceptable to him, right, and it's going to
Speaker 2: get very young, right. An article for THHV two News
Speaker 2: notes quote in an old radio program, Alama once said
Speaker 2: that when women start their periods, then they are women.
Speaker 2: According to God's word, they should be able to be
Speaker 2: married at thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, and in some cases if
Speaker 2: they have menstruateed already at twelve years old. So like
Speaker 2: capital P pedophile, we're talking.
Speaker 3: Yeah for sure, but you know, this does go along
Speaker 3: the biblical ideals. And that's also why a lot of
Speaker 3: the states in the US have not banned child Yeah. So,
Speaker 3: and I'm sure Arkansas is probably one of those places.
Speaker 2: No. No, And in fact, were those explicitly legal to marry,
Speaker 2: you know, fourteen year olds and.
Speaker 3: A lot of the twelve does the mama say, yeah.
Speaker 2: Younger than is allowed anywhere. But I don't actually want
Speaker 2: to be quoted on that because I might be wrong.
Speaker 2: But you're right, Like there is a biblical basis for
Speaker 2: what Tony is saying. Right, He's able to cite passages
Speaker 2: from the Bible in justification of the things he's doing. Now,
Speaker 2: I will say, by the time he reaches his apex,
Speaker 2: twelve is going to be old for him. But we're
Speaker 2: getting there, Samantha. Let's distract ourselves with some ads first, though.
Speaker 2: We're back. How you doing.
Speaker 3: I'm just, honestly, the problem I have is knowing that
Speaker 3: this man, if he was under trial now, guarantee, he'd
Speaker 3: be fine. Yeah, oh yeah, he would be so fine,
Speaker 3: Like he would be probably be in office and or
Speaker 3: an advisor at this point, Like that's just the level
Speaker 3: he has gone that well, oh yeah.
Speaker 2: I think he could have people marching in the streets
Speaker 2: with guns protecting him, for sure. I mean, he does
Speaker 2: get that. It's just that it kind of pisses off
Speaker 2: everyone around him because America's in a little bit of
Speaker 2: a different place at this time. So as Tony gets older,
Speaker 2: his beliefs on the proper age to marry a girl
Speaker 2: get looser. He moves the age limit down to tin,
Speaker 2: arguing that as long as a girl had started to menstruate,
Speaker 2: the men around her didn't just have the right, but
Speaker 2: a duty to marry her off quote and again, when
Speaker 2: you say there's a biblical basis, here's his argument. God
Speaker 2: impregnated Mary when she was about eleven years old. So
Speaker 2: the government, idiots, the people that don't know the Bible,
Speaker 2: what you're going to have to do is get a
Speaker 2: hold of God. Now you're gonna have to get up
Speaker 2: there and cuff him and send him to prisatory for
Speaker 2: statutory rape. And yeah, if God fucked an eleven year old, yeah,
Speaker 2: he's thousands speak of a power imbalance.
Speaker 3: He's also God, right right, there's well, I mean that's
Speaker 3: the point.
Speaker 2: I know there's a lot of debate as to the
Speaker 2: ages and stuff here.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but I mean, like in general, like he's also
Speaker 3: a god obviously. Maybe he didn't resurrect his wife, maybe
Speaker 3: he didn't for a plan to impregnate adolescence.
Speaker 2: And it's this whole thing like I I can remember
Speaker 2: because I grew up you know, in and around evangelicals
Speaker 2: in the post nine to eleven period constantly hearing about
Speaker 2: how the fundamental evil of Islam was that it allowed
Speaker 2: fourteen mom and married like a fourteen year old girl
Speaker 2: a twelve year old girl, something like that. You know,
Speaker 2: that's okay in this religion. That's part of like the
Speaker 2: reason why it's But like you, if you you can
Speaker 2: look at any religious text from that period and find
Speaker 2: a justification for fucking a little kid, right, that's just
Speaker 2: the reality, in part because of the time period in
Speaker 2: which those things were written. Ultimately, my stance is that
Speaker 2: outside of specifics of the faith that they claim to be,
Speaker 2: people who want to fuck kids find a reason to
Speaker 2: justify fucking kids, right, And.
Speaker 3: People who want to put those people on pedestals will
Speaker 3: justify why this is okay? Sure exactly people for that
Speaker 3: group of people.
Speaker 2: Right, we met Gates. Matt, He's fine, he's great, exactly,
Speaker 2: Matt Gates. We call this the Matt Gates coda. Right,
Speaker 2: so right up for the splc continues. It's a theme
Speaker 2: that Alamo keeps coming back to. In a radio show
Speaker 2: Justice February twenty fourth, the preacher cited that the alleged
Speaker 2: promiscuity of first graders as grounds for marrying them before
Speaker 2: the illegal age of consent. I found out from people's
Speaker 2: parents that their daughter having started having sex when she
Speaker 2: was six years old and had sex every day of
Speaker 2: her life, he said at one point, So right there,
Speaker 2: by the time she's fifteen years old, she's had sex
Speaker 2: thousands of times. I mean, this is just reality, the
Speaker 2: alternate reality you have to like create for yourself to
Speaker 2: exist within these things. And people have to listen to
Speaker 2: him be talking about like year olds having sex thousands
Speaker 2: of times and be like, yeah, that's how that's the
Speaker 2: that's the way things work. I never seen a child,
Speaker 2: but this seems accurate. Like, oh my god, I think
Speaker 2: some of it is literally a lot of these people
Speaker 2: will justify you see, like a kid, like look at
Speaker 2: another kid of the opposite section. You're like, well, that's
Speaker 2: basically sex, right, right, I don't know, I don't know
Speaker 2: fully what, Like, there's a lot to dig into here,
Speaker 2: but like, this is some of the most vile pedophile
Speaker 2: justification stuff I've ever heard. And this is not like
Speaker 2: a subject we cover, you know, sparingly on this show.
Speaker 2: Because it turns out that like wherever you find the
Speaker 2: worst people in a society, you'll find a lot of
Speaker 2: them finding reasons to justify having sex with little kids. Right,
Speaker 2: just a thing that keeps happening. It happens with Christians,
Speaker 2: it happens on the left. It happens and every religion
Speaker 2: and every political movement. It happens all the time with
Speaker 2: conservative Christians. It's just a uh I I. It's these
Speaker 2: people are predators, and predators are good at taking advantage
Speaker 2: of power dynamics. Tony's a predator who wound up at
Speaker 2: the head of a cult, and he understands how to
Speaker 2: manipulate people. And as time goes on and he's kind
Speaker 2: of freed further from any influence of his dead wife,
Speaker 2: he gets more and more extreme with the things he's
Speaker 2: willing to justify to his followers, and he keeps getting
Speaker 2: away with it, so he keeps going further.
Speaker 3: Right. My question though, is that the wife wasn't necessarily
Speaker 3: trying to protect the children as much as she was
Speaker 3: jealous of the children she's with their daughter. Yeah, she
Speaker 3: was like upset with the daughter for seducing her husband
Speaker 3: at such an age.
Speaker 2: Give her credit.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you're right, But this is that conversation is that
Speaker 3: no one really takes responsibility because they're just like, well,
Speaker 3: he's the one bad character we didn't know better. But
Speaker 3: the thing is, yeah you did, Yeah you did. You're
Speaker 3: the parent or the people who are like, watch these
Speaker 3: children grow up or haven't grown up. And then that's like, oh,
Speaker 3: everything about this and the fact that this continues to
Speaker 3: be a justifiable conversation, as if eventually someone will believe
Speaker 3: me and I agree with me. Yeah, it works, they do.
Speaker 2: Yep, yep, yeah, and it works for him for way
Speaker 2: too long. In nineteen ninety three, he releases a tract
Speaker 2: titled the Polygamists, where he justifies his behavior by arguing
Speaker 2: the Holy Scriptures proclaim polygamy to be righteous, and he's
Speaker 2: doing a lot of what like the there's a chunk
Speaker 2: of the Mormons, the FLDS Church very similar justifications for
Speaker 2: polygamy and for fucking kids. You know that you find
Speaker 2: between the two of them very similar to the kind
Speaker 2: of stuff David Koresh is saying. Right, because David Koresh
Speaker 2: is a friend of his, right, of course, of course,
Speaker 2: of course these guys get along.
Speaker 3: Wait, I would think that because he would be older
Speaker 3: than David Koresh. Right, I'm trying to geh. Oh, Yeah,
Speaker 3: I think he's a bit he's maybe he was mentoring
Speaker 3: this dude at this point.
Speaker 2: I think there's a bit of that going on. I
Speaker 2: don't know how Koresh because obviously Koresh is no longer
Speaker 2: able to give interviews, so I'm not sure one hundred
Speaker 2: percent how David would have described what their relationship was.
Speaker 2: But we'll talk about a little later how Tony describes it.
Speaker 2: In a broadcast for his TV network, talking about polygamy,
Speaker 2: Tony expounded, they're condemning polygamy when it's never condemned. God
Speaker 2: never says no polygamist shall enter the Kingdom of Heaven.
Speaker 2: But these bastards, these homosexual Vaticanites, they condone homosexuals, and
Speaker 2: they condemn marriage and a man that would take care
Speaker 2: of his They say, you're a polygamist that I married
Speaker 2: too many wives will find out prove it. And even
Speaker 2: if I was, there's no law in the Bible against it. Now,
Speaker 2: as you may be noticing here, Tony saved much of
Speaker 2: his hatred for gay people and the Catholic Church who
Speaker 2: thought wear the same thing. And we're responsible for both Nazism, communism,
Speaker 2: and pornography, all of it could be traced back to
Speaker 2: the Vaticans, and while Tony didn't get along with the Catholics,
Speaker 2: he could be open minded when it came to other
Speaker 2: cult leaders. He was friends, particularly with David Koresh. Tony
Speaker 2: told an interviewer that David was quote like a brother
Speaker 2: to me. No, I don't know. Does that mean they
Speaker 2: were really super frie Did he just see some value
Speaker 2: because these guys are preaching similar things vis a VI
Speaker 2: pedophilia and polygamy. I don't know. It's hard to say
Speaker 2: precisely how much money came into the cult because Tony
Speaker 2: was not a fan of paying taxes. I know you're
Speaker 2: going to be shocked by that, right, the foundation and
Speaker 2: again the church doesn't have to pay taxes because that's
Speaker 2: how churches work, unfortunately, But like his massively successful business
Speaker 2: is business selling denim vest to mister t has to
Speaker 2: pay taxes?
Speaker 3: Does it it was under like the actual umbrella of
Speaker 3: his cult that he still does.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, because it's not I mean like it's an
Speaker 2: actual like business, you know, like Tony's arguing it shouldn't
Speaker 2: have to, but the irs will feel differently. We know
Speaker 2: that from nineteen seventy to nineteen seventy six, the foundations
Speaker 2: reported income went from forty six one thousand dollars a
Speaker 2: year to one point three million dollars a year. And again,
Speaker 2: this is nineteen seventies money. It is obvious under reporting
Speaker 2: the Colt's numerous businesses and fleet of cadillacts would have
Speaker 2: required much more than this and income to maintain. What
Speaker 2: got Tony in trouble for the first time was the
Speaker 2: Fair Laboral Standards Act. No matter how many Fire and
Speaker 2: Brimstone speeches about how Tony gave, some number of his
Speaker 2: followers left each year, and as they re entered the
Speaker 2: real world, some of them caught on to the fact
Speaker 2: that Tony had actually broken the law by not paying them.
Speaker 2: Some of these people wound up talking to the government,
Speaker 2: and in nineteen seventy six the Department of Labor sued
Speaker 2: the Foundation for exploiting workers. It alleged that they'd been
Speaker 2: made to work twelve to fifteen hours a day, six
Speaker 2: to seven days a week without salary. Now that starts
Speaker 2: in seventy six, but the case takes a decade to
Speaker 2: wind to conclusion. Right, this is not a fast moving case,
Speaker 2: and it reaches the Supreme Court this is the Supreme Court,
Speaker 2: here's this case and rules nine to zero that workers,
Speaker 2: even an cult, are entitled to minimum wage and overtime benefits,
Speaker 2: which you would think, Oh, good, Tony's going to have
Speaker 2: to pay everybody now he does not. He finds workarounds,
Speaker 2: He delays payments as long as possible, and he orchestrates
Speaker 2: ways to recoup the money. Now that he was paying
Speaker 2: his workers a legal salary. What he would do is
Speaker 2: every couple of weeks he would give everyone their paychecks
Speaker 2: and then they would have a big to do of
Speaker 2: everyone handing their paychecks back as donations to the church.
Speaker 3: Right tithing. Right, That's what I would.
Speaker 2: Say, exactly, one hundred percent tithes. Still, the case had
Speaker 2: been as high profile as cases get, which drew the
Speaker 2: attention of federal law enforcement. So at this point Tony
Speaker 2: has gotten sued, He's lost his case. It takes ten
Speaker 2: years for him to lose his case, but nothing really
Speaker 2: changes about the way the colt actually operates its business.
Speaker 2: In the early nineteen nineties, Tony and the Tony and
Speaker 2: Susie Alamo Susan Alamo Foundation embarks on a bold new scam,
Speaker 2: one that was surprisingly petty given the other businesses operated
Speaker 2: by the cold but it gives you the level of
Speaker 2: contempt that they have both for like Christian charity and
Speaker 2: for the law. And I want to read a quote
Speaker 2: from an article by NBC News. Peter and Georgiadas of Pittsburgh,
Speaker 2: lawyer who sued Alamo on behalf of EX Followers in
Speaker 2: the nineties, said ministry workers accepted donations of food near
Speaker 2: its expiration dates, wiped off the dates, and resold the
Speaker 2: items to grocers. It's plain, flat out fraud, the lawyer said.
Speaker 2: Mary Koker, who helped X Followers contact federal agents, said
Speaker 2: that the ministry has been selling outdated government donated food
Speaker 2: since it moved to FUK in the nineteen nineties. So
Speaker 2: part one of their businesses is taking food donations and
Speaker 2: then operating a business to sell to grocery stores expired
Speaker 2: foods that had been donated for free.
Speaker 3: I'm not gonna lie that's a hustle.
Speaker 2: That's a hustle, huz these people. You know, he's got
Speaker 2: a lot of minds working for There's a lot of
Speaker 2: dudes who's only thought every day is how can we
Speaker 2: make more money for Tony Alamo? And they keep coming
Speaker 2: up with ways.
Speaker 3: You know that is I would have never thought of that.
Speaker 3: There's a reasonable grocery stores model. Yeah, but like grocery
Speaker 3: stores actually buying from them, that's I guess at different times.
Speaker 3: It's different times.
Speaker 2: It definitely was. In nineteen ninety one, the fence carried
Speaker 2: out a raid on Alamo's HQ and Georgia Ridge. He
Speaker 2: had enough warning that he was able to flee ahead
Speaker 2: of the authorities, along with most of his valuable property.
Speaker 2: The cops who raided his place found piles of bibles,
Speaker 2: eighty two pews, fifteen hundred Alamo jackets, photos of Tony
Speaker 2: with Larry Hackman, and dozens of mirrors, But they did
Speaker 2: not find Susan's body. That's the mausoleum had been smashed open.
Speaker 3: Wait so wait her body's missing now?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah missing?
Speaker 3: Wait what what are we trying to resurrect? Our two
Speaker 3: point zero was? It's like, no, what's happening.
Speaker 2: It's so much pettier than that. So Chris, Susan's daughter,
Speaker 2: despite how much her mom had abused her, still loved
Speaker 2: her mom and wanted to give her a proper burial.
Speaker 2: And Tony hates this girl so once she sues him,
Speaker 2: being like, you have to give me my mom's body.
Speaker 2: He has his followers steal it away and store the
Speaker 2: corpse in a storage unit to hide her. It would
Speaker 2: take like seven years for Chris to win the right
Speaker 2: to have her mom's body returned and reburied. Alama was
Speaker 2: eventually ordered to pay one hundred thousand dollars in damages.
Speaker 2: But like, that's it's just he's not even trying to
Speaker 2: raise her from the dead. He's just trying to keep
Speaker 2: her from being buried where her daughter can be a
Speaker 2: part of it. Because he's a real piece of shit. Yeah,
Speaker 2: very some reason.
Speaker 3: I feel like she would Susan would have enjoyed that
Speaker 3: her daughter after death.
Speaker 2: Also that yes, yes, Tony probably was following her wishes.
Speaker 2: Tony spent the first half of the nineteen nineties on
Speaker 2: a run from the law. The FBI put out wanted
Speaker 2: posters for him, which stated Alamo is always accompanied by
Speaker 2: bodyguards who have access to numerous weapons, to include M
Speaker 2: fourteen rifles. He is known to be hostile to law
Speaker 2: enforcement and is considered armed and dangerous. Now that's all true.
Speaker 2: What's wild to me is while he is on the run,
Speaker 2: his followers keep making jackets, and he keeps designing them.
Speaker 2: He uses a fax machine to skin send sketches from
Speaker 2: his Heidi Holes to different manufacturing facilities. He gains the.
Speaker 3: Way they fought, the parents are making their children still
Speaker 3: make these jackets. Oh he's still the children.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, it's still primarily the children. Yes, And
Speaker 2: he keeps giving interviews to journalists about the jackets. He
Speaker 2: even visits his Hollywood storefront while he's on the run
Speaker 2: from the FBI. He tells the La Times everything I
Speaker 2: do is a work of art. I do the designs
Speaker 2: wherever I'm at. And there's this this La Times article
Speaker 2: that I'm going to be quoting from is amazing because
Speaker 2: it's like he's talking to the people who are running
Speaker 2: these shops selling these jackets, being like, but you know,
Speaker 2: like he's on the run for a bunch of crimes, right,
Speaker 2: Like kids have accused him of molesting them. He's on
Speaker 2: the FBI's most wanted list. Why are you still selling
Speaker 2: his jackets right and happening?
Speaker 3: Why? Oh my god.
Speaker 2: The La Times is reporting indicated that Alamo jackets continue
Speaker 2: to be manufactured in California, New York, and primarily Arkansas.
Speaker 2: No one working at any of these factories received any pay,
Speaker 2: and apparently nothing meaningful had changed after that nineteen eighty
Speaker 2: five ruling. Quote. One former member who left the cult
Speaker 2: last year said working conditions at Alamo clothing shops have
Speaker 2: changed little since the ruling. The former member, who asked
Speaker 2: not to be identified, said he has seen young children
Speaker 2: working in the shops with their parents. Workers were paid
Speaker 2: only a five dollars a week stipend, plus room and
Speaker 2: boarded in the Lamo commune, he said. Now the article
Speaker 2: struck a bemused tone, veering from these store owners and
Speaker 2: customers praising the artistry of the jackets. We felt differently
Speaker 2: about rhyin Stones back then to former cult members describing
Speaker 2: the labor conditions as that of an unpaid sweatshop that
Speaker 2: primarily employed children. One question about this, Tony told a reporter,
Speaker 2: the clothing is so groovy. Everyone wants it, no matter
Speaker 2: what they think I am. No matter what, the superstars
Speaker 2: are gonna want my jackets.
Speaker 3: First of all, the voice is fantastic. Did he take
Speaker 3: all like hippie speak in order to like sell this?
Speaker 3: After all?
Speaker 2: Oh, he comes out of that world, you know, I
Speaker 2: think he is. At one point I think in the
Speaker 2: late sixties he probably was trying his hand at being
Speaker 2: a hippie. You know, he's in La around that time.
Speaker 3: I guess hippie and Jean Jacket Denham maybe they didn't
Speaker 3: go hand in hand.
Speaker 2: I don't know sure he is in all. This whole
Speaker 2: cult is shrapnel of the hippie movement, right the hippie
Speaker 2: movement doesn't really change anything. A lot of people wind
Speaker 2: up on the street and mentally damaged in the after
Speaker 2: shocks of the anti war movement in the Summer of Love.
Speaker 2: And you know, Tony is Tony and his initial cult
Speaker 2: followers are those people. So being decent reporters, the La
Speaker 2: Times Crew reached out to the FBI about the fact
Speaker 2: that this guy, who's apparently one of their most wanted
Speaker 2: seems to still be selling gen jackets in Hollywood. Quote.
Speaker 2: FBI spokesman Jim Neilson said the bureau is continuing at
Speaker 2: search for Alamo, but refuse to elaborate on the investigation. Now,
Speaker 2: if you're thinking, boy, isn't the fact that this serial
Speaker 2: child molester and child traffick are manufacturing expensive clothing for
Speaker 2: the most famous people on Earth and giving interviews will
Speaker 2: on the run from the FBI. Isn't that a hideous
Speaker 2: indictment of our federal law enforcement agencies? And my answer
Speaker 2: would be, oh man, they were up to so much
Speaker 2: worse shit than this in the mid nineties. Bro, I
Speaker 2: don't know what to tell you that this is actually
Speaker 2: kind of low. Now, some of the money from jacket
Speaker 2: sales was reinvested into the cult, primarily into the production
Speaker 2: of vast numbers of flyers complaining that Tony was being
Speaker 2: wrongfully targeted by the government on behalf of the Vatican.
Speaker 2: His Christian soldiers, largely followers, braced out of his Sauga's compound,
Speaker 2: trolled the streets of Hollywood and West LA putting leaflets
Speaker 2: on the windshields of thousands of cars from that article.
Speaker 2: The leaflet's rambling denunciations claimed that the District Attorney's Office,
Speaker 2: the Internal Revenue Service, and the Department of Labour are
Speaker 2: linked to a terrorist plot against the Alamo Church led
Speaker 2: by Pope John Paul the Second. The leaflets have become
Speaker 2: a common sight on Los Angeles streets, with titles such
Speaker 2: as government subversion against Alamo and Tony Alamo My side
Speaker 2: of the story. They have at various times appeared littered
Speaker 2: along the sidewalk on Broadway and downtown Los Angeles, at
Speaker 2: a county courthouse in Lancaster, and on the windshields of
Speaker 2: cars at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles International Airport. The
Speaker 2: leaflets bear the same sauga's phone number as glossy brochures
Speaker 2: used by Alamo Designs to promote the sequin jackets. By
Speaker 2: dialing the number of callers can learn how to obtain
Speaker 2: more of Alamo's religious literature, or which Los Angeles area
Speaker 2: stores carry Alamo's jackets. You can get it all propaganda
Speaker 2: or the jacket. Michael Jackson, Warren Bad, same guy, what.
Speaker 3: A deal, what a deal, A good conversation, and jackets,
Speaker 3: beaded jackets on beaded jackets.
Speaker 2: Yes, it's so funny how they would talk about rhinestones
Speaker 2: like serious art, Like, oh my god, the rhinestones on
Speaker 2: these are amazing.
Speaker 3: Are so good.
Speaker 2: What a special period of time that was for America.
Speaker 2: Speaking of special our sponsors, all of them, beautiful, special
Speaker 2: beat None of them are on the run from the FBI,
Speaker 2: hiding in the mountains. You know, that's not any of
Speaker 2: our sponsors, except for maybe that food box company that
Speaker 2: just got caught with child labor stuff. Anyway, whatever, we'll
Speaker 2: be back and we're back. So by this point, there
Speaker 2: are numerous reports in the media that Tony was molesting children.
Speaker 2: I hate coming back on a line like that, but
Speaker 2: this is the story that it is, he argued on
Speaker 2: his own TV program for polygamy and marriage of children
Speaker 2: as young at twelve. Yet major stores, including Macy's and
Speaker 2: Bullocks continued to sell his jackets until they were literally
Speaker 2: hounded by the press. These La Times reporters even came
Speaker 2: up with a photo of Tony shaking hands with Los
Speaker 2: Angeles Mayor Tim Bradley, and the picture was taken while
Speaker 2: Tony was on the FBI Most Wanted list. Wow, Bradley
Speaker 2: told report. Bradley's spokesperson told reporters, I guess Alamo was
Speaker 2: known for his sequin jackets something else at this point too. Man,
Speaker 2: I don't know what very La mayor thing to do, though, Like, look,
Speaker 2: famous people wear his stuff. I don't care what crimes
Speaker 2: he's committing.
Speaker 3: Right, I mean, that's not like the Jaws moment. Yes,
Speaker 3: pretend like no one's dead. No, pretend likely there's not
Speaker 3: a giant shark attack. Were she gonna enjoy the summer.
Speaker 3: Let's chill.
Speaker 2: I can't imagine the mayor from Jaws like arm in
Speaker 2: arm with Tony Alamo very easy Now. While he evaded
Speaker 2: law enforcement with almost comical ease, Tony continued to take
Speaker 2: new brides. One of the oldest of them was a
Speaker 2: seventeen year old girl named Yale, who was married to
Speaker 2: another man in the colt and gave birth in nineteen
Speaker 2: ninety three while on the run with Tony in his
Speaker 2: inner circle. As soon as she finished giving birth, Tony
Speaker 2: kicked her husband out of the colt. Yale had to
Speaker 2: beg to have him reinstated, and Tony told her he
Speaker 2: would on one cognition, she'd have to marry him. From
Speaker 2: a write up by the SPLC, Alamo's five wives played
Speaker 2: with her young daughter in another room as she pondered
Speaker 2: her fate. It's like having a loaded gun to your head,
Speaker 2: she says, now, refusing, Alamo meant, not only might you
Speaker 2: get beat half to death, but you'll go to hell
Speaker 2: on top of it. So pretty bleak, she says, Yes,
Speaker 2: the thing that you would expect happens. It's as awful
Speaker 2: as you would guess. It took Yale years to accept
Speaker 2: that what happened was not consensual. But obviously she was
Speaker 2: seventeen and he was sixty and the leader of her cult. Right,
Speaker 2: So they're not married long and during their brief period
Speaker 2: because he is free for about a year after marrying
Speaker 2: her before he finally gets caught. And during that brief
Speaker 2: period he marries a nine year old girl and a
Speaker 2: ten year old girl. Here's how Yale described his grooming practice.
Speaker 2: Every little girl starting to develop wants to feel beautiful,
Speaker 2: and he was very good at making them feel that way.
Speaker 2: He prayed on the fact that we were alienated from
Speaker 2: our parents. They worked and worked, and some of us
Speaker 2: hadn't seen our parents in a very long time.
Speaker 3: Yeah that makes sense.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I was, I mean.
Speaker 3: To be fair in these cold situations, it doesn't matter
Speaker 3: usually the parents, whether their present or not. They're somewhat
Speaker 3: like complicit parts complicit again.
Speaker 2: I think a lot of these, Yeah.
Speaker 3: But then like separating them makes a lot of sense,
Speaker 3: which it does happen in a lot of cults.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, it's it's pretty standard cult behavior, and I
Speaker 2: mean it makes sense that that's how Tony works.
Speaker 3: So he was okay with other people having multi relationships too,
Speaker 3: it wasn't just him or did he do all the marrying.
Speaker 2: Oh, it's he's doing all the marrying. Yeah. Yeah, some
Speaker 2: people are allowed to be married. But as Yale's get like,
Speaker 2: you can get forcibly separated by him if he doesn't,
Speaker 2: if he gets jealous of your relationship. In nineteen ninety four,
Speaker 2: the year after their marriage, Tony was finally arrested in
Speaker 2: This is not going to surprise anyone, Florida, where he
Speaker 2: had been living for most of the time he spent
Speaker 2: on the run under a fake name. He was convicted
Speaker 2: of tax fraud to the tune of nine million dollars
Speaker 2: and sentenced to six years in prison. Again, it was
Speaker 2: evidence by this point that he was practicing polygamy with children.
Speaker 2: But a year or so before his arrest in February
Speaker 2: of nineteen ninety three, the BATF and the FBI had
Speaker 2: had a bloody standoff with Tony's friend David Carey and
Speaker 2: his cold outside of Waco. The whole thing had ended
Speaker 2: with several dead agents, many dead coltists, and dozens of
Speaker 2: dead children. The disaster at Waco, which came right off
Speaker 2: the heels of the bloody ATF standoff at Ruby Ridge
Speaker 2: had galvanized the American religious right against what they saw
Speaker 2: as federal overreach. The fact that the Feds had fucked
Speaker 2: up hideously and made a very bad situation even worse
Speaker 2: made all of this a lot more problematic, and the
Speaker 2: FBI at all responded by pulling back from going after
Speaker 2: figures like a Lamo, which is why I suspect no
Speaker 2: one did the fairly minimal work necessary to charge him
Speaker 2: over his polygamy and child molestation at this stage. In fact,
Speaker 2: while he is in prison, he is allowed to have
Speaker 2: visitation rights with his wives per the SPLC the children.
Speaker 2: Yeah what Yeah. Although he was incarcerated during most of
Speaker 2: their marriage, Alamo kept in touch through regular prison visits,
Speaker 2: where Yale and other wives present at the time alleged
Speaker 2: that he would fondle the younger girls as older wives
Speaker 2: blocked the view of the prison security cameras. He allegedly
Speaker 2: spoke to the girls in graphic terms about group sex
Speaker 2: and whips, says Yale, who became terrified of him at
Speaker 2: the time. Neale says she was still in awe of Alamo.
Speaker 2: She worked eighteen hour days transcribing the tapes a Lama
Speaker 2: would record for his followers, She says, editing out his
Speaker 2: curse words. I would have killed for him. It would
Speaker 2: have killed my child or anyone for him, even though
Speaker 2: I hated him. Yale says, now I'd become his little demon,
Speaker 2: finding sick joy and telling people horrible things on orders
Speaker 2: from Tony. Oh oh boy, what cult dynamics, Like I
Speaker 2: know two to zero one there the whole older wives
Speaker 2: hiding what's happening. But also the fact that like, why
Speaker 2: are you prison officials letting children come here?
Speaker 3: There's so many questions. I have so many questions, like rumors,
Speaker 3: Like they already know they're these rumors, but then they
Speaker 3: let them in. Yeah, this is completely normal.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean a big part of the Tony Alamos
Speaker 2: story is that our legal system is set up to
Speaker 2: enable certain kinds of cult leaders, even when they molest
Speaker 2: children on a grand scale, because that's a lot easier
Speaker 2: for all of the people who have the like these
Speaker 2: government often these appointee jobs to just not upset the
Speaker 2: apple cart and piss off, you know, certain segments of
Speaker 2: the country by trying to stop the mass rape of children.
Speaker 2: It's cool, right, I love it.
Speaker 3: The amount of like, first of all, just just from
Speaker 3: what I remember working as a social worker for defacts.
Speaker 3: Having a child sex abuse case literally costs a dude
Speaker 3: six thousand dollars in probation. Yeah, that was, and that's
Speaker 3: if we had proof dead to rights. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 3: like had to be forensic proof or the child had
Speaker 3: to be able to explicitly tell in detail what it
Speaker 3: happened to them. But that's the like it. You would
Speaker 3: talk about the fact that it only costs a bit
Speaker 3: of money if you want to do this. It's disgusting.
Speaker 2: And the vin diagram of guys who would like shoot
Speaker 2: elected officials if those laws were changed to make the
Speaker 2: punishments be more substantial, and guys who own kill your
Speaker 2: local pedophile shirts is just a circle, right, the same guys,
Speaker 2: the same base. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Absolutely.
Speaker 2: Tony ultimately served four years of this sentence, leaving prison
Speaker 2: in nineteen ninety eight and immediately booking it for the
Speaker 2: town of Folk, Arkansas. Fouke. He repeated the same well
Speaker 2: worn tactics that had helped him build an inviable role
Speaker 2: of properties and businesses in two other Arkansas small towns
Speaker 2: and in Hollywood up to this point. For nearly a decade,
Speaker 2: Tony enjoyed wealth, instability, The town even honored him with
Speaker 2: a certificate of appreciation in February two thousand and six
Speaker 2: for deeds that he and his church did to aid
Speaker 2: those in need in our community and for his Christian
Speaker 2: love and kindness.
Speaker 3: And this is why I don't trust question.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, this is why I have a lot
Speaker 2: of trouble trusting anybody who runs a church.
Speaker 3: I'll say that much, right, Yeah, I mean I was
Speaker 3: gonna say a lot of this is hand in hand
Speaker 3: once again with the current church leaders today.
Speaker 2: It is, I will say, there's a difference in that
Speaker 2: it's these local small town residents who are I assume
Speaker 2: also evangelical Christians generally, who are some of the first
Speaker 2: people to stand up to Tony. Because here's the thing
Speaker 2: about pedophile cult leaders again, if you give them an inch,
Speaker 2: they wind up setting up armed guards on public streets,
Speaker 2: which is what an increasingly paranoid and elderly Tony did
Speaker 2: later in two thousand and six. By this point, the
Speaker 2: FEDS had started investigating him again, this time finally over
Speaker 2: the child molestation and trafficking. Alamo responded by ordering his
Speaker 2: armed guards to line the public street approaching his property.
Speaker 2: It is an unfortunate but undeniable reality that when you
Speaker 2: give a man a rifle and tell him to patrol
Speaker 2: the street, regardless of his legal position, he'll start questioning
Speaker 2: random strangers. This happened, and its seriously pissed off residents
Speaker 2: who complained to the local government, and then the local
Speaker 2: government did nothing because they were almost certainly being bribed
Speaker 2: by the cult or were just scared of it, and
Speaker 2: thus the government took no action until the abuses grew
Speaker 2: too numerous to ignore, so residents had to take actions
Speaker 2: into their own hands. One resident, Judy Fraser, a small
Speaker 2: business owner in town, started looking into the dark and
Speaker 2: documented history of Al Alamo ministries. She starts publishing stuff,
Speaker 2: she starts organizing the accounts of former members, and she's
Speaker 2: going to be like one of the most effective ground
Speaker 2: level activists against Tony. Ex followers start going to the
Speaker 2: media with increased frequency. One of them, a former school teacher,
Speaker 2: claims Tony ordered her daughter, who suffered from epilepsy, beaten
Speaker 2: while she was having a seizure because said seizures were
Speaker 2: caused by the devil. Another Sue Balsley, told the SPLC
Speaker 2: that her teenage boy was held in the air by
Speaker 2: four men and beaten one hundred and forty times as
Speaker 2: punishment for sending a lovel letter to a female classmate
Speaker 2: his own age. And it just keeps getting worse from there.
Speaker 2: There's the case of a girl, Cindy Joe Angelo, when
Speaker 2: she was fifteen and married to someone else because again
Speaker 2: not great dynamics outside of being married to Alamo in
Speaker 2: this cult. Alamo calls her into his house and makes
Speaker 2: her his wife in nineteen ninety five, which is when
Speaker 2: she finds out that her eleven year old sister had
Speaker 2: also been made a bride. Nicki Farr told the SPLC
Speaker 2: report that she had fled Alamo's house in nineteen ninety
Speaker 2: nine at age fifteen after three years of basically showing
Speaker 2: up for those prison visits and being sexually harassed by Tony.
Speaker 2: She didn't want to marry him once he got out,
Speaker 2: and she escaped from the cult by crawling through ditches
Speaker 2: and over barbed wire after he caught her making an
Speaker 2: unauthorized phone call and knocked her out. Pretty bad stuff. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: I was.
Speaker 3: Was this a documentary at any point, because some of
Speaker 3: these stories sound or ministry.
Speaker 2: It might have been a BBC documentary about this.
Speaker 3: I may have watched parts of it because some of
Speaker 3: this sounds, especially like the town being like this is
Speaker 3: getting weird to finally getting to that point familiar.
Speaker 2: We've crossed the line for small town.
Speaker 3: Right, like we would mind our business. But then when
Speaker 3: you start doing this and like.
Speaker 2: Devalu on the streets, the girls fleeing barbed wire. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 2: so from this point on the dam was broken. Reporting
Speaker 2: in February of two thousand and seven linked to Lamo
Speaker 2: to a warehouse of three thousand stolen mattresses owned by
Speaker 2: two of his wives. I wouldn't bring this up because, like,
Speaker 2: mattress theft not a huge crime, except these were temper
Speaker 2: pedic mattresses from a lot of eight thousand that had
Speaker 2: been donated by the company to victims of Hurricane Katrina.
Speaker 2: Tony's men had wound up stealing them somehow and sold
Speaker 2: an estimated four thousand of them for half a million dollars.
Speaker 2: So like, you're stealing mattresses for Katrina victims.
Speaker 3: Well, there's so many level God, like, I want to
Speaker 3: know this is like a fast and furious operation. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: Like there's a there's a package coming, there's a truck imaged.
Speaker 2: Pretty so and furious. It's going to take a lot
Speaker 2: of trucks to move eight thousand mattresses. God how they
Speaker 2: didn't have mail order mattress technology like we do today.
Speaker 2: Thank god you no, no, you could do it with
Speaker 2: like those what were those, the Podcaster mattresses?
Speaker 3: Now they're at Costco.
Speaker 2: Yeah, now they're at Costco. Casper. You could do it
Speaker 2: with Casper's. You can get eight thousand of those in
Speaker 2: a couple of box jobs. So state and federal law
Speaker 2: enforcement rated the Alamo compound in September of two thousand
Speaker 2: and eight, charging him with child abuse, possession of child pornography,
Speaker 2: sexual abuse, and trafficking. He was convicted on the testimony
Speaker 2: of five women who claimed they'd been married to him
Speaker 2: in secret ceremonies as miners. The youngest of these women
Speaker 2: had been eight at the time. After decades of horrific crimes,
Speaker 2: Tony Alama was convicted in two thousand and nine of
Speaker 2: taking girls across state lines for the purpose of sex.
Speaker 2: He was sentenced to the maximum one hundred and seventy
Speaker 2: five years in prison. Now he ultimately serves only a
Speaker 2: fraction of that because in May of twenty seventeen. He
Speaker 2: dies at the age of eighty two, but he still
Speaker 2: spends a decent bit of time in prison and he
Speaker 2: dies there. So I guess that's as good as this
Speaker 2: story was ever going to end.
Speaker 3: I want to know that the prisoner's cuddled him. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I'm just kidding, do it?
Speaker 2: I know that? Like, yeah, did they try to bring
Speaker 2: him back? I don't know. I hope he had a
Speaker 2: bad time. I hope it was all bad from that
Speaker 2: point on, because he didn't get nearly what I would
Speaker 2: describe as a fair punishment, like nine years in prison
Speaker 2: for what's really a dizzying array of crimes.
Speaker 3: Right, and the fact that he loved a majority Do
Speaker 3: you have his adulthood in luxury and like infamy, people
Speaker 3: respected his stuff. That's really disgusting. It makes me, yeah,
Speaker 3: angry at the entire system, like the fact that people
Speaker 3: are okay with this, Like I want to know, did
Speaker 3: Michael Jackson obviously can't now, but like mister t die
Speaker 3: pardon anybody ever talk about, you know, having a shame
Speaker 3: in that or like renouncing any of those things? Did
Speaker 3: they at least burn.
Speaker 2: I haven't run into it. I mean, what are you
Speaker 2: gonna say, like Hey, you know this guy who so
Speaker 2: you bought a jacket from turned out to suck. So like,
Speaker 2: it's not like, you know, it's not like they were
Speaker 2: like working together, you know, like it's not like Dolly
Speaker 2: Parton was in business with him specifically she liked, she
Speaker 2: did some shows at a venue he owned, She owned
Speaker 2: a jacket. Like, I don't know where we lock that
Speaker 2: in in terms of responsibility at a moral level.
Speaker 3: Right, I mean it's very least like acknowledging that the
Speaker 3: victims existed, including the child labor, yeah, went into her work.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I think it would have been good
Speaker 2: to say something for all of these people who bought
Speaker 2: Alamo jackets. But I'm not surprised they didn't.
Speaker 3: Of course not, they wouldn't. Yeah, I mean, we don't
Speaker 3: know who the queens and kings and presidents are at
Speaker 3: this point.
Speaker 2: No, yes, I do want to know. Yeah, I do
Speaker 2: imagine the King of Saudi Arabia has a nice collection
Speaker 2: of ryanstoned denim vests.
Speaker 3: I mean I feel like Bill Clinton probably had one, Yeah,
Speaker 3: putting one of those on and playing his saxophone, Oh yeah,
Speaker 3: on par.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I wouldn't be shocked. I wouldn't be shocked, especially
Speaker 2: since we know he was a fan. All right, yeah,
Speaker 2: well that's the episode.
Speaker 3: I need to stage my computer. How do I do this?
Speaker 2: Just just burn it? Just burn your computer? Oh man,
Speaker 2: good stuff? Well anything you want to push out there,
Speaker 2: Samantha at the.
Speaker 3: End, you know, talk about stuff on stuff mom never
Speaker 3: told you about how the world is awful and similar
Speaker 3: to these bad people and hopefully solutions or at least
Speaker 3: positive things. So if you want to come listen to us,
Speaker 3: you can find me on Blue Sky McVeigh. Sam. I
Speaker 3: do have Instagram and all that, but I'm rarely on there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, check out Sam McVay and check out Maybe
Speaker 2: don't check out social media too much, but you'll if
Speaker 2: you do find Sam on it. Above all, else, don't
Speaker 2: buy a denim jacket. They're all made by cult.
Speaker 3: Leaders, especially if it's bedazzled.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, especially if it's bedazzled. Just avoid that for
Speaker 2: your own soul's sake. All right, And that's the episode. Everybody,
Speaker 2: We're done.
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