US evangelist Tony Alamo was sentenced today to 175 years in prison for taking underage girls across state lines for sex, effectively punishing him for the rest of his life for molesting children he took as "brides" in his ministry.

The woman considered to be the common-law wife of US evangelist Tony Alamo told his child sex trial she thought wedding rings in his bedroom were donations to the ministry and did not notice that younger and younger girls were living with them.

A nine-year-old girl was considered too young to answer the office phone at evangelist Tony Alamo’s compound, but old enough for frequent sex, she has alleged at his US trial on child-sex charges.

Six children have been temporarily taken into care in a child porn investigation following a raid on an Arkansas ministry run by a man who says "consent is puberty" when it comes to sex.

Social workers are interviewing children who live at an evangelist group's headquarters after FBI agents and police raided the compound in a child porn probe.