Six girls—Jeanne Orlando (left), Amy Eddy (second from left), Desiree Kolbek (second from right), Pebbles Rodriguez, Jamie Rodriquez, and Summer Hagan—were taken as child brides and sexually abused by Tony Alamo, a fundamentalist minister and leader of the cultlike Tony Alamo Christian Ministries. Jeanne was 15, Amy was 14, Desiree was 8, and Pebbles was 12 when they were first raped by Alamo. A seventh girl, Nicole Farr (right), was 15 when she escaped from Alamo’s compound, having been told she would be his next bride.
Dozens of other children were also sexually, physically, and emotionally abused by the group, which also had branches in Indiana, California, Colorado, New Jersey, Oklahoma and Tennessee. None of the children in the group received social security numbers or vaccinations. Although Alamo claimed that all the children were homeschooled, their homeschool program was not registered and Anthony Lane, the father of three other children in Alamo’s group (9-year-old Tim, 11-year-old Sarah, and 13-year-old Ashley, whom he had seen married to a 40-year-old man), stated that “They don’t do much schooling though, for someone who claims they home school their kids. I didn’t see a whole lot of kids going to school every day.”
Tony Alamo was arrested and charged with transporting minors across state lines to engage in sex. He was sentenced to 175 years in prison. Many of the parents in his group lost custodial rights to their children.
Date: September 20, 2008
Location: Fouke, Arkansas
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