MY COMMUTATION

My name is Bernie Hoffman, also known as Tony Alamo. This is my presentation for clemency for a crime I did not commit.

I’ll be 82 on September 20, 2016. I am totally blind, I’m in a wheelchair, I have diabetes, and I died once with a heart attack. They took me to the hospital to resuscitate me. I was put on a ventilator, and they brought me back.

If I have a visit, I need a lot of help to get me ready for it. I need someone to wheel me to the visiting room and to wheel me back to my room after the visits.

My dad was a professional entertainer. He was also a Russian ballet master and a world-class artist.

I got into the record industry and came up with the idea to put twenty oldie-but-goodie hit songs on one album. I was my own distributor and sold directly by mail—something that had never been done before. I put together several twenty original hit albums, and they all were extremely successful.

I was contracted by Pete Best of the Beatles to do his promotion after he was fired by Brian Epstein, the Beatles’ manager. As my payment for the promotion, I was given one of six original Beatle albums that Peter’s mother owned. Pete Best’s mother was the rich Beatles’ owner. I still own that album, plus I was given an album by Pete’s new band called “Best of the Beatles,” and I own that album.

After I was saved, I and the church opened up the most successful clothing boutique in the entire world in Nashville, Tennessee. It was called The Alamo of Nashville. I was licensed to do the clothing for the worldwide television program Dallas with Larry Hagman and the rest of the cast. I created many clothing designs for thousands of celebrities and many movies. Barbie doll of Mattel Toys stated I was her favorite clothing designer in newspapers throughout the United States. I also did Dolly Parton’s Dollywood costume as well as for her Family Band. I did promotions for Sonny and Cher, the Beatles, Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson and the Jackson Five. I did the clothing lines for many sports figures such as Hulk Hogan, the Honkey Tonk Man, Mike Tyson, Mr. T, and Formula One drivers. I designed clothing for the Mandrel family. Clothing was designed for boxing promoter Don King.

For the past fifty years, I’ve been in the gospel field. I was saved in 1964 when I was thirty years old and was married to my wife, Susan, who was nine years older than I. I was married to her for seventeen years, until the day she died.

Pastor Tony Alamo and Mr. T

In the mid-sixties (at least fifty years ago), my late wife and I went to the streets of Hollywood and brought hippies and people from all walks of life to the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. Many are with me today. Thousands of hippies were turned away from their deviations and became born-again Christians. When they had nowhere to go, we provided housing for them, paid for their clothes, food, medical, dental, eyeglass needs, and everything pertaining to life. We gave them everything they needed, but most of all, we led them to the Lord Jesus Christ (salvation), and continued to feed them spiritually with the Word of God.

In 1972, the governor of California, Ronald Reagan, sent his aide, Herbert Ellingwood, to our church in Saugus, California, to present a commendation for our exceptional impact in reducing the drug activity and crime in the Los Angeles area.

I’ve heard of the persecution of Christians, especially ones that are true spiritual leaders, down through the years. Boy, is it true. Since I’ve been saved, I’ve gone through the same type of persecution as you see the saints in the Bible go through. I’ve been falsely accused of everything but murder, and they’ve even tried that, but it didn’t work.

We worked hard to manufacture the clothing. The movie stars were wearing them. We were in Macy’s in New York, Neiman Marcus stores, Merry-Go-Round, and hundreds of other stores. They went to all the stores that we were in and told them that little children did the airbrushing and rhinestoning of the jackets. That also was a filthy lie. They said that they didn’t have to pay for our clothes that were in their stores, and that they were not to order them any longer. If they ever bought any of my clothing again, that they would close their stores.

We were taking care of children better than their parents took care of them because their parents didn’t have the money that we did. But they gave away all of our property. They gave away our churches. They were throwing our people in prison if they went to my church. They took away their children and put them in foster homes, and they put me in prison on several counts for nothing but lies.

The reason for my incarceration is that my trial was a big rush. I was rushed into court, and the trial was rushed.

This all started because there was a 28-year-old woman in my church, Jeanette Orlando, who confessed to me that she was having sexual relations with her father. I do not allow incest in my church, so acting on what she told me, I put her father out of the church. His wife and children left with him. Then, long after they were gone, Jeanette changed her story and said that she had lied about that—she never had sex with her father. I couldn’t believe that anyone would lie like that about her own father and watch as her family suffered because of her lies, so I put her out of the church.

Actor Larry Hagman and Pastor Tony Alamo
at Larry’s home at the Colony in Malibu, CA

Before she left, she went to the other girls in the church office and started telling them all sorts of false things, totally unbeknown to me. Then the government sent them to a radical anti-Christian hate group, which used to be called the Cult Awareness Network but now is called Wellspring Retreat, where my trial was rehearsed, orchestrated, so that they would all be telling the same false story in the courtroom.

Several of these witnesses at first resisted, not wanting to have anything to do with the agenda of these people, but they were continually hounded by the Cult Awareness Network and the government until they finally gave in. The old Cult Awareness Network was destroyed by the Scientology Church when they won a case against them. That’s when they changed their name to Wellspring.

These witnesses were coached to put on a show and cry to gain sympathy. They were also being coached while on the stand by the lead federal investigator of my case. He was sitting at the prosecution’s table and was seen giving cues to the witnesses while they were testifying.

Another thing that caused my incarceration was the frenzy of the newspapers and other media around the Arkansas area. The media intensified its smear campaign that they’ve conducted for around 50 years while I was in jail before the trial. They didn’t know me, nor did they visit our church. They broadcasted all sorts of lies. It was impossible for me to have an unbiased jury and a fair trial. The same thing happened several years ago in 1994, when they accused me of tax evasion. My church is tax-exempt, and so was I, but I did four years in a federal prison because of their lies.

That whole courtroom was infuriated with me. I asked my lawyers, “Why are you not calling my witnesses? Why are you not letting me testify? Why are you not defending me?” They said, “Do you want us to get tarred and feathered? Because these people in the courtroom are so hostile that they would tar and feather us and run us out of town for defending you.”

I have been in prison now for seven and a half more years on false charges, and of those years, I have been in the hospital for over one and a half years. I honestly don’t understand, after fifty years of serving the Lord, how all of these things have happened to me. I really didn’t know most of the witnesses that were against me, other than their names. I maybe met them once or twice.

Sonny Bono, Pastor Tony Alamo, and
Congresswoman Mary Bono walking in New York City

Through all the persecution, we blanketed the world with gospel literature and Bibles. We have thousands upon thousands of people all over the world who have been brought to Christ through our ministry and the literature that I write and distribute freely. Muslims, Hindus, atheists, and others who never would have heard the undiluted truth of the Word of God if it wasn’t for what we do, have been converted. Those involved in crime, the sick, those who are in despair and suicidal were given new hope through our preaching the gospel of Christ and providing a place for the new converts to grow and become strong in the Lord at our ministry.

All of the money I’ve made in different enterprises down through the years, I’ve used to further the gospel. For more than fifty years, I have helped the poor and suffering humanity. Although hampered severely by my incarceration, we continue to help throughout the world with physical and spiritual needs.  

It is far more advantageous for people in the area and in the world that I be released so that I can continue in the ministry of the gospel. Needless to say, I’m very sick, but I am continuing on in the ministry. They’re trying to label me a “predator,” but I’m too old and too sick to be a predator.

Thank you very much for your consideration. I appreciate anything that you can do to help me get out of here. I’m praying that God will get ahold of some of you people to help us with the ministry and to help us to help others. God bless you, and I’m waiting to hear from you.

Tony Alamo, World Pastor
Tony Alamo Christian Ministries Worldwide
P.O. Box 2948, Hollywood, CA 90078
Twenty-four hour prayer and information line:
(661) 252-5686  •  Fax (661) 252-4362
www.alamoministries.com
[email protected]