Children removed from 'consent is puberty' ministry
Six children have been temporarily taken into care in a child porn investigation following a raid on an Arkansas ministry run by a man who says "consent is puberty" when it comes to sex.
The children will be in the custody of the Arkansas Department of Human Services as investigators interview them, state police spokesman Bill Sadler said.
Mr Sadler said courts would decide the children's status in the event of any "long-term separation" from the property of the Tony Alamo Christian Ministries in rural Fouke.
He did not say how old the children were, but an email that authorities inadvertently sent to the media last week referred to 12, 13 and 14-year-old girls.
The move came after a raid on Saturday by more than 100 government and state authorities. Investigators said their two-year probe into allegations of child pornography and abuse focused on convicted tax evader Tony Alamo and his ministry, described by its critics as a cult.
Alamo, 74, claimed in an interview on Saturday that the investigation was part of a government push to legalise same-sex marriage while outlawing polygamy. He also said when it came to girls having sex, "consent is puberty".
News of the raid brought roofer Anthony Lane, 34, into Fouke, hoping for some word about his family.
He said he has been trying for 10 years to reunite with his children, who belong to Alamo's ministry. Mr Lane said he saw a 13-year-old girl marry a man of about 40 just before he was kicked out of the church for asking too many questions.
Mr Lane hired a lawyer and said that he was trying to subpoena the mother of his children, but that it remained difficult as she moved among Alamo's churches in Arkansas and California.
He said he last saw his oldest daughter, Ashley, who would now be 13, in 2005. She offered him a pamphlet as he sat in his car reading a newspaper outside Alamo's church in Fort Smith in 2005. When Mr Lane told her he was her father she ran off, he said.
He said he had received only a few photos since then of Ashley and his other children Sarah, 11, and Timothy, nine, from a relative. His long-time girlfriend was pregnant with Timothy when he said he was expelled from the church for questioning their practices.
"I see pictures of those kids and I feel robbed - robbed of being a father," Mr Lane told reporters.
"I keep laying it in the Lord's hands and hoping he'll have mercy on my children and protect them."
Authorities' search of the Fouke complex ended after midnight on Saturday and Mr Sadler said officials had no plans to search the buildings again. Authorities have not indicated any plans to search other ministry locations.
US Attorney Bob Balfe would not comment when asked whether an arrest warrant had been issued for Alamo or other members of his church.
Alamo and his late wife Susan were street preachers along Hollywood's Sunset Strip in 1966 before forming a commune near Saugus, California. Susan Alamo died of cancer in 1982; Alamo claimed she would be resurrected and kept her body on display for six months while their followers prayed.
Alamo was convicted of tax-related charges in 1994 after the Internal Revenue Service said he owed the US government $3m (€3.8m). He served four years in prison.
Prosecutors in the tax case argued before sentencing that Alamo was a flight risk and a polygamist who preyed on married women and girls in his congregation.
The Southern Poverty Law Centre, which monitors the activities of extremist groups in the US, describes Alamo's ministry as a cult that opposes homosexuality, Catholicism and the government.
