The seizure Friday of four young brothers associated with Tony Alamo Christian Ministries in Arkansas brought to 36 the number of children taken into custody by state child-welfare authorities.

Alamo, 74, remains held without bond on charges that he violated the Mann Act, a federal law that bans carrying women or girls across state lines for “prostitution or debauchery, or for any other immoral purpose.”

The children are on a list of more than 120 youths affiliated with Alamo Ministries that authorities are trying to find, Munsell said. The FBI picked up the six last week in Valparaiso, Ind., after agents said they received information that the children were taken from Alamo-controlled homes in Fort Smith.

Also: One former follower wanted his family out of the church because he saw a 13-year-old girl marry a 40-year old man in Alamo’s church and feared the same could happen to his daughters.

Child welfare officials on Wednesday visited a Tony Alamo Christian Ministries compound just outside of Los Angeles, officials said.

Louise Grasmehr, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services, told The Associated Press that officials likely went to the compound in Santa Clarita at the request of federal agents.

Elsewhere six more children were taken into protective custody.

An indictment unsealed Tuesday accuses evangelist Tony Alamo of eight more counts of transporting underage girls across state lines for sexual purposes over the past 14 years, including at least one violation that occurred while Alamo was completing a prison sentence at a halfway house in Texarkana.

The original indictment against the 74-year-old leader of Tony Alamo Christian Ministries, a multistate ministry with headquarters in southwest Arkansas, accused him of transporting a girl across state lines in 2004 and 2005.

A beating administered by evangelist Tony Alamo and the man described as his “enforcer,” John Kolbeck, at Alamo’s religious compound in Fouke last year caused “serious and permanent injury” to a teenager’s left hand and wrist, according to a lawsuit filed by the teenager and another former church member.

Eighteen-year-old Spencer Ondirsek said in the lawsuit that Alamo struck him three times during the beating. At one point, he said, Alamo taunted him, saying, “You think I like doing this? I love doing this !” The lawsuit was filed by Ondirsek and Seth Calagna, who is also 18, on Tuesday afternoon in U. S. District Court in Texarkana. Both teens left the church this year and now live in the Spokane, Wash., area.

Testifying at a hearing on the custody status of four girls taken from his religious compound in Fouke, evangelist Tony Alamo admitted to sharing a house with multiple women, but he contended he was only married to one at a time.

On the stand, Alamo was asked about a tract he had written in 1993 noting that several prominent figures in the Bible had multiple wives. The evangelist reiterated his position that the Bible does not condemn polygamy, but he denied having multiple wives.

An Arkansas judge says 20 children removed from the Tony Alamo Christian Ministries compound by child welfare officials will temporarily remain in state custody.

Hearings continue on whether six other girls removed from the compound in September will remain in state custody. [video] [Updated]

A judge said Saturday that he would be open to a plan that would protect two teenage girls taken from Tony Alamo’s religious compound while allowing their parents to stay in the ministry, but the parents haven’t proposed such a plan.

In a hearing that concluded Friday evening, Miller County Circuit Judge Jim Hudson ruled that the girls can eventually be reunited with their parents if the parents agree to move off property controlled by Tony Alamo Christian Ministries and to establish financial independence from the church.

Two girls taken from Tony Alamo’s religious compound in southwest Arkansas can eventually be reunited with their parents if the parents sever some of their ties with the church, a judge ruled Friday.

Meanwhile, two days after their children were taken from them in a sweep of Tony Alamo Christian Ministries properties, church members opened the church to reporters, denying that they had ever abused their children and saying the government is trying to destroy their church.

Authorities said dozens of children missing from Tony Alamo ministries in Fouke and Fort Smith, Ark., listed on a court order may be out of the reach of child welfare agencies if they’ve been taken across state lines.

Not a single child was found on Alamo properties in Fort Smith after officials with DHS and members of the Arkansas State Police searched more than a dozen sites Tuesday.

The orders authorizing removal listed many more children than the 20 taken Tuesday.

Arkansas authorities have taken into protective custody 21 children associated with the Tony Alamo Christian Ministries based on allegations of neglect and physical abuse.

Julie Munsell of DHS says, “We had been gathering information, gathering evidence over the last several weeks, but was actually sped up by the reported movement of families and children in the area. So we went ahead and decided to execute the court order that we had received for the removal of the children.” [video]

At a hearing on the custody status of two girls removed from Tony Alamo’s religious compound in southwest Arkansas, a 14-yearold girl testified that Alamo had touched her inappropriately, and an 18-year-old man described beatings at the hands of another church member.

e girls, along with four others, were removed from the compound in Fouke after a Sept. 20 raid by federal and state authorities investigating allegations that children at the compound had been physically and sexually abused.

Six members of Tony Alamo Christian Ministries have been arrested for distributing handbills on vehicles in Texarkana, Texas.

All six members were charged with violating a city ordinance against distributing handbills on unattended vehicles.

The handbills spread the church’s conspiracy theories regarding the prosecution of its leader, Tony Alamo.

A federal judge has moved a trial for jailed evangelist Tony Alamo to Feb. 2.

In court papers filed Tuesday, attorneys for Alamo, whose real name is Bernie Lazar Hoffman, said they needed more time to prepare. Prosecutors filed a motion saying they did not object to the request.

At a federal detention hearing Wednesday for Tony Alamo, several witnesses said John Erwin Kolbeck beat Alamo’s followers for even minor infractions like playing with a spray bottle. John Wesley Hall Jr., a Little Rock lawyer representing Alamo, declined to comment about the

Former followers said Alamo sometimes introduced Kolbeck by mimicking Jack Nicholson’s menacing “Here’s Johnny!” from “The Shining.”

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