SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif., Oct. 26 — Manson family killer Charles “Tex” Watson, who claims he was “born again” and found Christ while in prison, runs a ministry business on the outside.

The former lieutenant to sex and dope cult leader Charles Manson now serves as assistant chaplain at the California Men’s Colony prison and says he was ordained in April as a minister of the Word of Faith Center of the Southern Christian Fellowship in Bakersfield, Calif.

The outside ministry, which he operates with his wife, whom he married while in prison, is no moneymaker, he says.

“All the money that comes in goes right back out to those in need,” Watson told the state Board of Prison Terms -Thursday at his fourth unsuccessful bid for a parole date.

The business is called Abounding Love Ministries (ALM) and prison officials say it has a mailing list of 1,400.

Watson told the parole board the ministry is a federal non-profit, tax exempt corporation with a post office box in San Luis Obispo. It mails out literature and tape cassettes containing his spiritual messages, he added.

“All the money that comes in goes right back out to those in need,” he said. “There is no money made in the ministry.”

Deputy Los Angeles District Attorney Stephen Kay, who prosecuted the Manson killers and who appeared at the parole hearing, said there is a judgment against Watson for the murder of Voityck Frykowsky, one of the victims in the home of actress Sharon Tate.

If Watson were to have any income, it could possibly be attached, he noted.

Kay asked during the parole hearing to see the financial records of Watson’s ministry business. Watson said Kay might be allowed to see the books if he submitted a written “formal request” to the board of directors of his ministry.

He also said that a book he wrote about his experiences in the Manson family, was no longer being published, and therefore had not made him any money.

Watson said the rights to the book now belong to Chaplain Ray Hoeskra of Dallas, Texas, who put up $100,000 for the book and is still $98,000 in the hole.

He said that “Chaplain Ray” runs the International Prison Ministry and once suggested to him that after the book debt was paid off, Watson might use any money he made to reimburse the families of his victims.

“I agreed with that,” Watson said. “It would be something Biblical, rather than (to) make money off of crime,” Watson said. “That is something I would never do.”