A.k.a. Bernie LaZar Hoffman (birth name), Mark Hoffman,
Marcus Abad, etc.
Well, this one is pretty obvious, but we couldn’t very well
leave him out, could we? Tony Alamo is an American cult leader and figure at
the unhinged end Christian right, known to many by virtue of their tendency to
leave their literature, mostly insane anti-Catholic and anti-American
government rants (“Did you know that the Pope and Ronald Reagan are a couple of
Anti-Christ Devils and that they are selling us all down the drain?”), on car
windshields across America.
Alamo himself has an impressive criminal record, and a
multitude of former cult members have leveled charges against him (particularly
rape charges), including reports that he has had as many as seven “wives”, whom he married when they were still children.
Indeed, Alamo claims that women are the property of men, and that once a girl
reaches puberty she needs to marry and begin having children. God told him
that. God may also be the source of his information that 9/11, the Kennedy
assassination and Pearl Harbor were inside jobs (that is, caused by Satan, who
is the guy really in charge). When his wife Susan died of cancer, Alamo tried
to raise her from the dead by keeping her on display for six months with members of his “church” praying around it (the story actually gets a bit bizarre after that).
Apparently God wasn’t really forthcoming on that occasion.
The congregation use to live in a compound in rural
Arkansas, though it was raided by Federal agents in September 2008 after
reports of child sexual abuse. Soon after Alamo himself was arrested and being
charged with multiple crimes involving child sexual abuse and transporting
minors across state lines for those purposes. Alamo's response has simply been
to declare that everything he has done is OK, since it was done in the Bible.
Which may be correct.
He is presently serving a Life sentence,
and the cult has probably come to an end, though it is a bit difficult to determine for sure.
Diagnosis: Probably neutralized, though one suspects that
there are plenty of similar monsters out there ready to take his place.
There was also the business where Tony Alamo got his cult members to create fancy sequined jackets and other expensive attire that Alamo marketed to celebrities, who weren't aware the people who created the fancy duds received no payment as Tony Alamo pocketed all the money.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was in high school, a lot of us were traveling on a school-sponsored trip to support our football team in the playoffs. The school superintendent insisted we stop for supper at a restaurant/cafe which it turned out Alamo had recently purchased. Rumor was that our super got a kickback for bringing two buses of parents and students to eat under the giant "Jesus is Lord" sign inside. Not only was Alamo a religious kook and a perv, he was also a lousy restauranteur. They burned the chicken.
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