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9 03-24-88 04:40 pcs Ark., Mo. Sheriff takes boys from commune SANTA CLARITA VALLEY, Calif. (UPI) _ Sheriff's deputies Thursday removed three young boys from a controversial religious commune and returned them to the custody of their fathers. The youngsters were living with their mothers at the Tony and Susan Alamo Foundation, a religious commune 30 miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles, Deputy Richard Dinsmoor said. Deputies served search warrants and a court order about 6 a.m. at the site without incident. The boys were then reunited with their fathers, Carey Miller, 34, and Robert Miller, 35, Dinsmoor said. The Miller brothers, in Orange County Superior Court, had obtained orders returning the boys to their custody, Dinsmoor said. The two brothers had been members of the church in Arkansas until last fall when they were excommunicated and their wives obtained divorces and remarried, Dinsmoor said. Two of the boys, Bobby Lee, 4 and Kody, 9, are Robert Miller's sons. The other, Justin 11, is Carey Miller's son. Tony Alamo and his wife, Susan, who died in Arkansas of cancer in 1982, considered themselves the architects of the "Jesus Freak" movement. They created the foundation in the late 1960s and spread their gospel to young dropouts roaming the streets of Hollywood. Except for a skeleton crew, the foundation pulled out of California more than a decade ago and established headquarters in a secluded mansion in the Ozark Mountains near Alma and Dyer, Ark. Alamo, called "Papa Tony" by his followers, assumed sole control of the foundation following his wife's death. He returned to California after a series of run-ins with local and federal officials. The Internal Revenue Service revoked the foundation's tax-exempt status in 1985 after deciding that one of its primary purposes was making money. The foundation believes in "total control," Carey Miller said in an interview before Judge Ronald Owen heard their case. "You turn every penny you earn over to the church. You live on five dollars a week." The brothers fled from the foundation's Arkansas headquarters "with the clothes on their backs," he said. Their sons subsequently came with their mothers to California. The Millers said they were concerned about their sons' safety in the commune. "I have knowledge of children being beaten with boards," Robert Miller said. "I know of one child being beaten with a board 100 times until he passed out." In an interview with the Los Angeles Times in December, Alamo spurned suggestions he fosters a cult and remained adament that the foundation's mission is saving lost souls. "They are needy," Alamo said of the converts. "They are on narcotics and drugs. We got them off narcotics and drugs. We are trying to show them a real good life." Would-be converts are provided copies of "The Pope's Secrets" a tract by the anti-Catholic Alamo, alleging that the pope is a homosexual and the "super boss of all government agencies." Alamo was born Bernie Lazar Hoffman in Joplin, Mo., and raised in Montana.

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