Arkansas: Pedophile minister Alamo on trial; witness testifies he 'married' her when she was 8

Just sickening. Back in September 2008, the feds raided the Tony Alamo Christian Ministries in Fouke, located south of Texarkana, after an investigation into minor children being abused at the property.

The 74-year-old Alamo, who believes that age of consent is puberty, homosexuality is caused by demon possession and "the Vatican, the one-world government and church are spiritually powered by that old serpent called the Devil," is now on trial facing a 10-count indictment alleging he took underaged girls across state lines for sex.

A 9-year-old girl was considered too young to answer the office phone at evangelist Tony Alamo's compound, but old enough for frequent sex with the ministry leader, she alleged at his federal trial on child-sex charges.

The woman, now 18, testified that she dodged security cameras and roving guards to escape the compound in 2006. Her testimony left jurors red-eyed and shaking their heads Thursday....Defense lawyers have largely left the sex and underage marriage claims unchallenged, though they have questioned witnesses' memories and whether they had been coached by authorities.

The teenage witness said Alamo "married" her when she was 8, and groped her after their wedding...She said at one point she asked the minister why he had selected her. "He said, `Because you were cute,'" she said on the witness stand. "It wasn't God's will that he married me. It's just because he thought I was cute.

This man shouldn't see the light of day again. The Southern Poverty Law Center did an extensive investigation into Alamo's "ministry."

As detailed in the Fall 2007 issue of the Report, Alamo in recent years has argued that girls should marry once they start menstruating, even if they are as young as 10. In a 2006 radio broadcast, he said: “God impregnated Mary when she was about 11 years old. So the government idiots, the people that don’t know the Bible, what you’re going to have to do is get a hold of God now, you’re going to have to get up there and cuff him and send him to prison for statutory rape.”

In early 2007, Alamo cited the alleged promiscuity of 1st-graders as grounds for marrying them before the age of legal consent. “I’ve found out from people’s parents that their daughter started having sex when she was 6 years old and had sex every day of her life,” he said in another broadcast. “So right there, by the time she’s 15 years old, she’s had sex thousands of times. I mean, this is just reality.”

Related:

* Arkansas: Child porn, abuse bust at Tony Alamo Christian