Summary of Investigative Journal Radio Program with Greg Anthony on First Amendment Radio

October 9, 2014

Today, let’s look at some more of the irregularities in Tony Alamo’s case, and I’m going through some of the documents. Regarding Tony’s recent appeal to get a new trial, the legal document is a long one, and I’m going through it to understand how this legal machine works. There’s an affidavit that’s attached to this document which lays evidence to what I said in the original show I did Monday which outlined that the first attorney who took this case collected $350,000 and then promised to do a good job, but instead went on vacation, was never available and basically did nothing, and finally dropped out. Then an affidavit came across my desk, and I’ve got the document in front of me. It was given to the court in 2012 and shows that Tony didn’t get a fair trial, and many of the witnesses that were to be called on his behalf were never even contacted by the defense. Unbelievable!! I mean you’d at least contact them to find out what they say to see if they’d be a good witness or not, wouldn’t you think so? They never even were contacted, and this is verified. The document states that people who were working to help these attorneys from the Alamo Ministry had communications with attorneys in advance of his July, 2009 trial in his case that I’m referencing. As Tony was detained pretrial these people participated on his behalf in assisting with the investigation conducted by his defense by providing the names and contact information for witnesses who had useful testimony at trial. Now this would be important, wouldn’t it, to rebut what I consider to be the flimsy charges against him in violation of the Mann Act? This was provided to defense investigator David McGonagill with a list of witnesses in March and April 2009, sufficient time to at least contact them; their contact information was given, and the list included Terri White, Nina Romero, Merry Anne Barnett, Tom Barnett, Brian Broderick, Debra Ondrisek, Vickie Larison, Tamela Reed, Dennis Hagan, Angela Ondrisek, Sally Demoulin, Mary Jane Scheff, David Scheff, Rebecca Cunneen, Rose Pochatko, Peter Pochatko, Myra Cunneen, Mark Cunneen, Brendan Broderick, Shirley Gibson, John Pew, John Peeler, and Don Sweat; all this is public record. None of these witnesses which I just read were called at Tony’s criminal trial; most of them were not even contacted, and that to me is ridiculous. Many of these people were just forgotten about, and that, to me, is just incredible. So can you imagine what kind of trial this would be? He only had a 10-day trial. We’ll see in the documents what it was really like. It seems pretty shabby to me.

One person from the Alamo Ministry met with McGonagill before the trial regarding this testimony, but many people from the ministry never met with defense attorneys to review potential testimony, and the meeting with McGonagill was brief. “He took some notes, but did very little to prepare me,” said one person who took the witness stand on his behalf. Now the failure of this preparation, to me, is prejudicial to Alamo’s case, isn’t it? And that’s stated in the documents. Had attorneys prepared witnesses, even interviewed them, they could have testified in great detail about the alleged victims and their interest in making the trips in question, which is the key to this intent. In the Mann Act, traveling across state lines with a minor to have sex is a crime. All these witnesses were going to show that there was never any intent for sex, and that the ministry took many trips in buses or in cars to their different locations across state lines. The witnesses could tell more about the purposes of the trips, some of which were their interest in seeing new and exciting places, and they wanted to be close to where exciting things were happening in the church. There was a focus only on Tony’s purpose of travel, which was not the issue before the jury’s consideration. The issue was, What was the purpose of the travel? Why did these 4 or 5 girls go on these trips? I might add, three of these girls were sent to Wellspring, a place where they were coerced, they were interrogated, they were coached on what to say.

I want to go over a document that is an affidavit sent to the court by John Peeler who I’ve had many times on this show. He is an undercover FBI agent who told me that the government had asked for his services to bring this ministry down, and he had tons of information about how the government was setting Tony up and framing him, which the jury never heard. The judge, because of Peeler not being called to testify, was never asked to rule. If the defense doesn’t call him, the judge doesn’t have to rule that his testimony is either relevant or irrelevant, which on appeal would be a huge issue. I don’t see how any court could get around the fact that this is not relevant information so if you’re in cahoots with the defense attorney who doesn’t call somebody, that makes it harder on appeal to get this case overturned, doesn’t it? So it’s a little club. I’m not saying there aren’t good attorneys out there. There are people out there who are respectable, who uphold what justice should be, but there’s a lot of corruption, and there’s a lot of finagling between defense attorneys and prosecutors, and it’s a little club, so to speak, for these people. Sometimes things go on that you wouldn’t believe.

The reason that Peeler wasn’t called is very strange. He gave an affidavit to the court, which means that if it’s false, he can be jailed for perjury, right? Here’s what Peeler said:

“I, John Peeler, am a resident of Arkansas and have been for years. Prior to Tony Alamo’s trial in July of 2009, I was contacted by Mr. Alamo’s attorneys regarding information I had [So they contacted him.] concerning Mr. Alamo and the circumstances of the investigation that led to his arrest and prosecution. During my conversation with Mr. Alamo’s counsel, I expressed my willingness to testify in Mr. Alamo’s trial as a subpoenaed hostile witness. I stayed in contact with several members of the Alamo Foundation, including member Don Sweat, during the time period leading up to Mr. Alamo’s trial. According to members of the Alamo Foundation, Mr. Alamo’s counsel informed me on several different occasions that they planned to have a subpoena issued for my testimony. The Alamo Foundation members called me several times prior to trial to ask if I had received a subpoena yet. I never did! I was never contacted by Mr. Alamo’s counsel again to discuss my potential testimony, and I was never asked to testify at trial. [Now what happened between that time when the defense counsel says he’s going to testify, and then he didn’t? Was there a conversation with the prosecutor? This testimony could have maybe led to Tony’s acquittal when you hear what Peeler had to say.] At trial I would have testified to the following matters: I was a former violent crimes task force operative, an informant, and employee assigned to undercover operations for different governmental agencies. I was sworn in by the Honorable George Howard Jr., the United States District Court for the District of Arkansas, in 1998. Present at my swearing-in were FBI agents Glen Gordon and Bill Buford.”

I’ve listened to his testimony regarding what he was asked to do by the government, which would show that they were trying to frame this man for years. If the defense doesn’t call him, my question is why? And if their answer is, “Well, we can’t prove that he was an actual employee of the FBI, or an undercover informant.” Here’s the deal. First of all, you have to understand that the FBI and CIA can wipe people off the books at will if they want to, and you know what I mean by that. “Oh, he never worked here; no, we don’t have any records of that.” One push of the computer button and they’re gone. Now the point is, with these names Glen Gordon and Bill Buford, they could also testify. Bring them up on the stand, and then do some digging. Maybe some other people would come out of the woodwork to prove that this man is actually telling the truth. But it wasn’t done. To me, it was a miscarriage of justice; a defense attorney who is either in bed with the prosecution or he’s just there to collect the money and get the hell out as quick as he can. It’s just amazing to me. Tony has already spent 6 years in prison. His appeal has been sitting on a judge’s desk for 2 years. Is there anybody out there that knows of the Innocence Project? I see these TV shows that are getting people out of jail that don’t belong there. Is there anybody out there who can lend assistance to this man? And when I say this, I say it in sincerity. Let’s get to the bottom of this because if they can do this to him, they can do it to anybody.

John Peeler said that he was assigned to infiltrate Tony Alamo’s church and its business operations with the goal of finding some kind of criminal evidence against him. He spoke with numerous people in his church; he also spoke with Alamo on several occasions, and after several years of investigating him, he found no evidence of criminal activity in either his personal life or his business operations. Despite the lack of evidence that he presented to the violent crime task force, they continued to push him to find something they could use against him. So, basically they were trying to frame him, right? These situations were set up in an effort to find Mr. Alamo engaging in criminal activity. However, none were successful. Mr. Alamo would take no drugs, money, or weapons. So this guy, Peeler, was infiltrating, trying to get him to do something wrong, and he didn’t. He wanted nothing to do with anything illegal.

Mr. Peeler continued, “When I relayed this information to the Violent Crimes Task Force agents Glen Gordan, Bill Buford, and FBI agent Kenneth Petros, they became extremely upset. They were intent on prosecuting Mr. Alamo, and when I could not report back to them with any evidence of criminal activity, they wanted me to fabricate evidence. I refused and subsequently left the Violent Crimes Task Force. Since then, my son John Christopher Peeler has been subjected to repeated threats and harassment from the Violent Crimes Task Force, the Little Rock police, and other governmental agencies.” This is what he said to the court (by affidavit) in November of 2012. As of today, nothing has been done. The judge is still sitting on it. Peeler had been on my show many times after this. When Tony was still free, Peeler on my show apologized to Tony for what he did. After Tony was put in jail, Peeler came on my show a couple times and talked about these irregularities and went into depth about what they wanted him to do, and it shows that he really was asked to frame Alamo. Now if this could be proven, I doubt if these charges would have stuck, but for some reason they weren’t. Peeler never got to testify in court. He has given an affidavit subjecting himself to perjury and jail time if this is not true. That’s enough for investigators to really get into this, but do they really want to investigate it? It appears to me that they don’t. There’s an affidavit from Debra Ondrisek, and she testifies to some interesting things that would have helped Tony by showing that these charges were not true. I’m going to get into these affidavits on another show because there is about 90 pages of different people with reasons of why they should have been called to testify to discredit or show that the charges against him have been trumped up. There were 4 or 5 complainants who had come forth with this evidence in violation of the Mann Act. We’ve got Nina Romero and Debra Ondrisek, all these are affidavits filed on behalf of Tony that would show that these charges were trumped up, and they were not even called to testify. And the evidence goes on and on, and is sitting on a judge’s desk for 2 years. Now tell me that there isn’t something going on here that we need to know.

tonyalamoministries.com