News Desk
Douglas Christopher, 59, a member of the
Tony Alamo Christian Ministries, has
been sentenced to life imprisonment for
transporting three young girls, all minors,
across state lines for sex. The girls were
the daughters of a woman Christopher
married in 2000. Tony Alamo is serving a
175-year sentence for similar crimes.
(Texarkana Gazette, 1/13/14)
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
Members of Alamo Christian Ministries
are reportedly gutting six of the
organization’s Fort Smith, Arkansas
properties in anticipation of a public sale
of the properties to pay judgments
against the organization. Lawyers for
victims of the ministry who are supposed
to benefit from the sale have persuaded
the court to bring in the U.S. Marshals
Service to secure the properties and their
contents. (Texarkana Gazette, 12/20/13)
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
Circuit judge Kirk Johnson has entered a
default judgment in Miller County,
Arkansas and ordered imprisoned
evangelist Tony Alamo individually to pay
more than half a billion dollars in
damages to seven women he sexually and
physically abused. Six of the women were
taken by Alamo as “spiritual wives” when
they were children. The seventh was
being groomed to be a wife in Alamo’s
polygamous home when she ran away at
age 15.
Alamo had failed to respond to a civil
lawsuit filed by the women in Miller
County, and his silence allowed Texarkana
lawyer David Carter to seek the default
judgment and damages award. The
judgment is identical to one Johnson
levied last month against Twenty First
Century Holiness Tabernacle Church, an
arm of Alamo Ministries. The judgments
against Twenty First and Alamo are the
largest personal injury judgments in
Arkansas history, Carter said. Johnson’s
docket entry in the case against Alamo
states the judgment against the
polygamist pastor will mirror the one
against Twenty First.
At the end of the hearing, Johnson
mentioned the multimillion-dollar
judgment against Twenty First. “The court
has previously held that $525 million is an
appropriate damages award for their
acquiescence to these heinous acts,”
Johnson said. “The court has read each
and every one of the psychological
evaluations of the young ladies in this
case … the abuse and underage
marriages.” (Texarkana Gazette, 3/21/14)
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
Ahmed al-Shayea, who became Saudi
Arabia’s poster boy for a jihadi
deprogramming initiative aimed to
discourage Saudis from rejoining
al-Qaeda, has reportedly appeared in
Syria as a member of the Islamic State of
Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), an al-Qaeda
franchise. Several other Saudis, among
hundreds who went through the
program, have also returned to their
jihadi groups, and the efficacy of the
deprogramming is now being questioned.
But the president of the think tank
Quilliam says that only 80 to 100 of the
4,000 to 6,000 who have been
deprogrammed have resumed either
fighting or their jihadi ideology. The Saudi
program, he said, “has been largely
successful, but it has not—as Saudis have
tried to claim in the past—been magic,
with no cases of people returning to
jihad.” (The Observer, 1/18/14)
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
In the PBS documentary The Amish:
Shunned, a member of an Amish
community alleges that shunning, which
can include excommunication, is
calculated to stimulate repentance
among community members who refuse
to conform to strict Amish ways, and to
prevent them from negatively influencing
the rest of the congregation. Several
leavers explain how and why they left the
church, and how shunning affected
relationships with their families. An Amish
man says, of the shunned, “They wanted
something that was not allowable so they
just moved on.” Naomi, who left the
community, says that during a visit to
Florida, where she worked in a nursing
home, she decided to go to college to
train for the nursing profession, but that
higher education was forbidden by her
brethren. Her anguished decision to leave
the Amish was rewarded with a nursing
degree. And she, like a number of other
leavers, has helped departing Amish in
their transition to mainstream society.
(The Christian Post, 2/6/14)
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
John Friend’s “feel good” Anusara Yoga
empire, with 1,500 licensed teachers and
more than 600,000 students worldwide,
crashed in 2012 following accusations
against Friend of financial
mismanagement, having affairs with
married students, receiving marijuana in
the mail, and engaging in Wiccan rituals.
Nonetheless, Friend is staging a
comeback, in Denver. “I get to start over
with something better than I had before,”
he says, as he develops a new yoga
posture system called Sridava, in
collaboration with sisters Desi and Micah
Springer, co-owners of Vital Yoga.
(Houston Press, 1/15/14)
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
Bikram/“hot yoga” pioneer Bikram
Choudhury is under fire in the midst of
lawsuits women claiming sexual
misconduct have filed against him. Five
women in the past year have filed civil
lawsuits against Bikram, one accusing him
of sexual assault, and four of rape.
Plaintiff Sarah Baughn, together with two
other women who are pursuing lawsuits
against Bikram and his Yoga College of
India, detailed their claims on ABC News’
Nightline. Baughn, a former yoga
champion, told Nightline’s David Wright
that she met Bikram in 2005 when she
attended his 9-week teacher-training
course. Baughn said Bikram took an
immediate interest in her and repeatedly
made unwanted sexual advances, which
she rebuffed and reported at least once to
a staff member. But the advances
continued and resumed at a later date
when Baughn solicited feedback from
Bikram before a 2008 competition
organized by USA Yoga: “…he told me
that the only way I could ever win the
yoga competition was if I had sex with
him.” Baughn told Nightline she fought her
way free and competed, placing second.
One of the judges told ABC News that
hers was the strongest routine and that
Bikram likely overturned their decision to
award her top honors. Baughn said
another judge had told her after the
competition that “she was robbed.”That
judge told ABC News he stood by the
integrity of the judging and disputed ever
telling Baughn she was “robbed” of the
title.
28 ICSA TODAY
Douglas Christopher, 59, a member of the
Tony Alamo Christian Ministries, has
been sentenced to life imprisonment for
transporting three young girls, all minors,
across state lines for sex. The girls were
the daughters of a woman Christopher
married in 2000. Tony Alamo is serving a
175-year sentence for similar crimes.
(Texarkana Gazette, 1/13/14)
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
Members of Alamo Christian Ministries
are reportedly gutting six of the
organization’s Fort Smith, Arkansas
properties in anticipation of a public sale
of the properties to pay judgments
against the organization. Lawyers for
victims of the ministry who are supposed
to benefit from the sale have persuaded
the court to bring in the U.S. Marshals
Service to secure the properties and their
contents. (Texarkana Gazette, 12/20/13)
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
Circuit judge Kirk Johnson has entered a
default judgment in Miller County,
Arkansas and ordered imprisoned
evangelist Tony Alamo individually to pay
more than half a billion dollars in
damages to seven women he sexually and
physically abused. Six of the women were
taken by Alamo as “spiritual wives” when
they were children. The seventh was
being groomed to be a wife in Alamo’s
polygamous home when she ran away at
age 15.
Alamo had failed to respond to a civil
lawsuit filed by the women in Miller
County, and his silence allowed Texarkana
lawyer David Carter to seek the default
judgment and damages award. The
judgment is identical to one Johnson
levied last month against Twenty First
Century Holiness Tabernacle Church, an
arm of Alamo Ministries. The judgments
against Twenty First and Alamo are the
largest personal injury judgments in
Arkansas history, Carter said. Johnson’s
docket entry in the case against Alamo
states the judgment against the
polygamist pastor will mirror the one
against Twenty First.
At the end of the hearing, Johnson
mentioned the multimillion-dollar
judgment against Twenty First. “The court
has previously held that $525 million is an
appropriate damages award for their
acquiescence to these heinous acts,”
Johnson said. “The court has read each
and every one of the psychological
evaluations of the young ladies in this
case … the abuse and underage
marriages.” (Texarkana Gazette, 3/21/14)
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
Ahmed al-Shayea, who became Saudi
Arabia’s poster boy for a jihadi
deprogramming initiative aimed to
discourage Saudis from rejoining
al-Qaeda, has reportedly appeared in
Syria as a member of the Islamic State of
Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), an al-Qaeda
franchise. Several other Saudis, among
hundreds who went through the
program, have also returned to their
jihadi groups, and the efficacy of the
deprogramming is now being questioned.
But the president of the think tank
Quilliam says that only 80 to 100 of the
4,000 to 6,000 who have been
deprogrammed have resumed either
fighting or their jihadi ideology. The Saudi
program, he said, “has been largely
successful, but it has not—as Saudis have
tried to claim in the past—been magic,
with no cases of people returning to
jihad.” (The Observer, 1/18/14)
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
In the PBS documentary The Amish:
Shunned, a member of an Amish
community alleges that shunning, which
can include excommunication, is
calculated to stimulate repentance
among community members who refuse
to conform to strict Amish ways, and to
prevent them from negatively influencing
the rest of the congregation. Several
leavers explain how and why they left the
church, and how shunning affected
relationships with their families. An Amish
man says, of the shunned, “They wanted
something that was not allowable so they
just moved on.” Naomi, who left the
community, says that during a visit to
Florida, where she worked in a nursing
home, she decided to go to college to
train for the nursing profession, but that
higher education was forbidden by her
brethren. Her anguished decision to leave
the Amish was rewarded with a nursing
degree. And she, like a number of other
leavers, has helped departing Amish in
their transition to mainstream society.
(The Christian Post, 2/6/14)
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
John Friend’s “feel good” Anusara Yoga
empire, with 1,500 licensed teachers and
more than 600,000 students worldwide,
crashed in 2012 following accusations
against Friend of financial
mismanagement, having affairs with
married students, receiving marijuana in
the mail, and engaging in Wiccan rituals.
Nonetheless, Friend is staging a
comeback, in Denver. “I get to start over
with something better than I had before,”
he says, as he develops a new yoga
posture system called Sridava, in
collaboration with sisters Desi and Micah
Springer, co-owners of Vital Yoga.
(Houston Press, 1/15/14)
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
Bikram/“hot yoga” pioneer Bikram
Choudhury is under fire in the midst of
lawsuits women claiming sexual
misconduct have filed against him. Five
women in the past year have filed civil
lawsuits against Bikram, one accusing him
of sexual assault, and four of rape.
Plaintiff Sarah Baughn, together with two
other women who are pursuing lawsuits
against Bikram and his Yoga College of
India, detailed their claims on ABC News’
Nightline. Baughn, a former yoga
champion, told Nightline’s David Wright
that she met Bikram in 2005 when she
attended his 9-week teacher-training
course. Baughn said Bikram took an
immediate interest in her and repeatedly
made unwanted sexual advances, which
she rebuffed and reported at least once to
a staff member. But the advances
continued and resumed at a later date
when Baughn solicited feedback from
Bikram before a 2008 competition
organized by USA Yoga: “…he told me
that the only way I could ever win the
yoga competition was if I had sex with
him.” Baughn told Nightline she fought her
way free and competed, placing second.
One of the judges told ABC News that
hers was the strongest routine and that
Bikram likely overturned their decision to
award her top honors. Baughn said
another judge had told her after the
competition that “she was robbed.”That
judge told ABC News he stood by the
integrity of the judging and disputed ever
telling Baughn she was “robbed” of the
title.
28 ICSA TODAY
