Justice sometimes takes time. And often, we are convinced, it is not done in chronological time, one of our human measuring sticks.

But Friday, justice caught up to evangelist Tony Alamo in a federal courthouse in Texarkana in a frame of reference we can identify with and support. He was sentenced to 175 years on numerous counts of having sex with underage girls.

The sentence—the maximum U.S. District Judge Harry Barnes could assess—is what all but the most delusional of Alamo’s followers believe he deserves for despoiling young lives in the name of God.

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