Federal judge awards $3 million to 2 teens who sued evangelist Alamo’s alleged enforcer

$3M awarded in suit against alleged Alamo enforcer

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — A fugitive accused of beating two teenagers on evangelist Tony Alamo’s orders must pay $3 million in restitution, a federal judge ruled Thursday.

U.S. District Judge Harry F. Barnes awarded $1.5 million each to Spencer Ondrisek and Seth Calagna, who were both raised in Alamo’s church in Fouke in southwestern Arkansas. The teens accused Alamo’s alleged enforcer, John Kolbek, of battery, false imprisonment, outrage and conspiracy.

Authorities haven’t been able to locate Kolbek since the lawsuit’s filing last year. He disappeared after FBI agents and Arkansas State Police raided Alamo’s Fouke compound more than a year ago looking for evidence the evangelist kept underage girls as “wives” that he sexually abused.

No phone number is listed for Kolbek, who’s wanted on a felony battery warrant for one of the teen’s beatings. No lawyers have appeared in court on Kolbek’s behalf.

W. David Carter, the lawyer for Ondrisek and Calagna, said they can collect on any of a number of properties listed in Kolbek’s name across the country. Testimony at Alamo’s recent child-sex trial showed the evangelist ordered his trusted followers to put church property in their names to avoid the Internal Revenue Service.

Now, that might be the church’s ultimate undoing as Alamo awaits sentencing next month in his federal trial.

“That’s part of the purpose: to dismantle the enterprise that caused so much suffering,” Carter told The Associated Press after Thursday’s court hearing.

Ondrisek testified Thursday, and Calagna did not attend but offered a four-page statement. They described a twisted world where trivial infractions led to beatings, punitive fasts and threats of damnation from Alamo.

Calagna said Alamo and Kolbek “essentially robbed me of the first 18 years of my life.”

“They were teaching me that thinking for myself was ‘disobedient’ and that disobedience results in beatings,” Calagna said. “I came to believe that the beatings would purge me of evil and spare me from burning in hell.”

Barnes awarded each teen $500,000 in compensatory damages and $1 million in punitive damages.

The teens also have sued Alamo, and he’s to answer to the allegations during a July 2010 jury trial.

Alamo, 75, will be sentenced Nov. 13 in a separate case for taking girls across state lines for sex. He remains in jail after being convicted on 10 counts in federal court in July.

He faces up to 175 years in prison and as much as $250,000 in fines on each count.