Miller County Circuit Judge Joe Griffin said the request came from state lawyers handling a series of child custody cases before his court in Texarkana. Child welfare officials have seized 36 children associated with Alamo’s ministry since a federal raid on the jailed evangelist’s Fouke compound in September reports the Associated Press.
In California, a hearing date has been set for an Alamo follower accused in a 1988 beating.
At Texarkana, Griffin previously issued a gag order over the cases and shut the proceedings to the public.
“I openly didn’t find anyone had violated it to the point of putting someone in jail,” Griffin told The Associated Press. “One I had determined that they hadn’t violated the gag order and two of them had, but it was of a slight nature.”
Griffin said the tract in question came out in February, one of several issued by the church since Alamo’s arrest Sept. 25. For years, Alamo followers have placed the tracts warning about a Vatican-controlled, one-world government under car windshield wipers near the church’s ministries. Now, tracts focusing on parents of the seized children have even appeared at the state Capitol during this year’s legislative session.
Two other Alamo followers – parents of children taken by the state – remain jailed on contempt of court charges for refusing to say where their other children are, Griffin said.
The judge said he would hold court hearings on April 1 and April 30 to discuss the status of children taken from 12 families associated with the ministry. Griffin and another judge have ordered the families to sever their ties with Alamo’s ministry as a condition of getting their children back.
Read more here: Judge declines to jail 3 Alamo ministry members