Tony Alamo, Cult-Leading, Child-Abusing Clothier To The Stars, Dies At 82

BUTNER, NC — Tony Alamo, a charismatic street preacher who rose to prominence in the 1970s designing eye-popping outfits for musicians before his latter-day downfall and century-long prison sentence for child sex abuse, died at a North Carolina prison hospital Tuesday. Alamo was 82.

Alamo was convicted in 2009 on federal charges of taking underage girls across state lines for sex. Alamo said the girls — one of whom was 9-years-old — were his wives. A federal judge sentenced him to 175 years in prison.

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Alamo began his street preaching in Hollywood in the 1960s, emerging virtually out of nowhere — he actually emerged out of Joplin, Mo., where he was born Bernie Lazar Hoffman — to become a fixture in the "Jesus Freaks" movement that drew in hippies and young people. Alamo's version of strident Pentecostalism distinguished itself with rabid anti-Catholic rhetoric and apocalyptic warnings. His followers were accused of aggressive evangelism — in some cases, kidnapping — on the streets of Southern California.

Alamo married Susan in Las Vegas in 1966; it was then he changed his name, partially in an attempt to distance himself from his Jewish ancestry. By the 1970s, Tony Alamo Christian Ministries became famous for its prolific fliers and mailers — TACM fliers are still often left on car windshields by devotees in Nashville — and for its gaudy Tony Alamo of Nashville clothing line, which sold sequined jackets and other stage-appropriate items to musicians, including the famous jacket from the cover of Michael Jackson's Bad album. That jacket was sold at an auction to satisfy a nearly $8 million tax debt.

Susan Alamo died in 1982 and even his most devoted parishioners said it was then his behavior turned truly bizarre. He kept his wife's body on display at the Holy Alamo Christian Church in Dyer, Ark. A persistent, but apparently false, rumor was that Susan's body was kept at a home at the corner of Tyne Boulevard and Lealand Avenue in Belle Meade, which was owned by the Alamos or their various churches and foundations between 1976 and 1996. Nevertheless, record executive Tony Brown had the property cleansed by mediums and spirtualists when he purchased it in 1998.

Alamo's first conviction came in 1991. He served four years for tax evasion — he avoided prosecution for child abuse, when prosecutors determined too much time had passed between the alleged incident in which Alamo was accused of ordering men to paddle an 11-year-old boy 140 times; he was acquitted on another charge of threatening to kidnap a federal judge — and the 300-acre Dyer property was abandoned and then seized by the feds, who said Alamo dodged taxes by claiming not to have received a salary as leader of various church-owned businesses.

During that prison stint, Alamo's followers dwindled from thousands down to about 100, who established a campus in Fouke, Ark. after his release. It was then he began taking child brides — Alamo claimed in interviews that "Consent is puberty" — starting with a 15-year-old in 1994.

In 2008, federal agents raided the Fouke compound, arresting Alamo. During the trial, prosecutors said Alamo married young girls and then took them out of Arkansas for sex. Witnesses said Alamo exercised total control inside the compound, deciding who got married and even who got clothes and food.

Five women testified they were married to Alamo while minors, including one who was eight years old at the time. The judge who sentenced him said "One day you will face a higher and a greater judge than me. May he have mercy on your soul."