Associated Press - December 31, 2008 6:44 PM ET
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) - A video of an interview by a state investigator with a teenage follower of jailed evangelist Tony Alamo (uh-LAW'-moh) has been leaked to the Internet. In the interview, the girl describes a life devoted to mission work -- passing out tracts on mass suicides -- +and seeing signs of the end times in natural disasters.
Over nearly two hours, she told a child welfare official that Alamo never touched her or had sex with underage girls. She said those were acts only a "backslider" outside of the church would commit. Instead, she said his hands and words toward Heaven worked miracles.
The girl told the investigator that Alamo prayed over a church member who had AIDS, and that person was healed. She said that, for Alamo to, "get an answer like that from God, you know he's not going to be sinning. I trust him. I believe everything he says,".
A video of her interview, conducted a day after FBI agents and Arkansas State Police raided Alamo's ministry in Fouke, found its way to the Internet this month. Now, the state Department of Human Services wants the video removed as officials still look for children associated with the ministries.
Julie Munsell, a DHS spokeswoman, said it appeared a family member passed the video along to a Web site called Inquisition Update with Tom Friess. Munsell said department lawyers sent a request to a Miller County judge today about the video, asking that an effort be made to remove it from the Internet site.
A message left at a telephone number registered in Friess' name in Perry, Iowa, was not returned. A man claiming to be Friess in a chat room on his Web site said he was, "not going to participate in another mainstream media hatchet job to smear Tony Alamo and the members of his Bible-believing community,".
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) - A video of an interview by a state investigator with a teenage follower of jailed evangelist Tony Alamo (uh-LAW'-moh) has been leaked to the Internet. In the interview, the girl describes a life devoted to mission work -- passing out tracts on mass suicides -- +and seeing signs of the end times in natural disasters.
Over nearly two hours, she told a child welfare official that Alamo never touched her or had sex with underage girls. She said those were acts only a "backslider" outside of the church would commit. Instead, she said his hands and words toward Heaven worked miracles.
The girl told the investigator that Alamo prayed over a church member who had AIDS, and that person was healed. She said that, for Alamo to, "get an answer like that from God, you know he's not going to be sinning. I trust him. I believe everything he says,".
A video of her interview, conducted a day after FBI agents and Arkansas State Police raided Alamo's ministry in Fouke, found its way to the Internet this month. Now, the state Department of Human Services wants the video removed as officials still look for children associated with the ministries.
Julie Munsell, a DHS spokeswoman, said it appeared a family member passed the video along to a Web site called Inquisition Update with Tom Friess. Munsell said department lawyers sent a request to a Miller County judge today about the video, asking that an effort be made to remove it from the Internet site.
A message left at a telephone number registered in Friess' name in Perry, Iowa, was not returned. A man claiming to be Friess in a chat room on his Web site said he was, "not going to participate in another mainstream media hatchet job to smear Tony Alamo and the members of his Bible-believing community,".
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press