Story Published:
Jan 1, 2009 at 8:28 AM CDT
Story Updated:
Jan 1, 2009 at 8:28 AM CDT
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) - A video of an interview by a state
investigator with a teenage follower of jailed evangelist Tony
Alamo 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, quote, "get an answer like that from God, you know he's
not going to be sinning. I trust him. I believe everything he
says," unquote.
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 last 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 yesterday 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, quote, "not going to
participate in another mainstream media hatchet job to smear Tony
Alamo and the members of his Bible-believing community," unquote.