By NINA
GOLGOWSKI
Two former employees of the world's largest Christian
television channel Trinity Broadcasting Network are accusing the
non-profit of spending $50 million of its funding on extravagant
personal expenses.
Among purchases, the network
founded by Televangelists Paul and Jan Crouch, is accused of
misappropriating its 'charitable assets' toward a $50 million jet,
13 mansions and a $100,000-mobile home for Mrs Crouch's
dogs.
Their granddaughter, Brittany
Koper, 26, recently filed her allegations in court after a brief
appointment as the network's chief finance director in
July.
Accused: Brittany Koper,
center, recently filed a suit accusing the Trinity Broadcasting
Network, its founders Janice Crouch (left) and Paul Crouch Sr (far
right), in squandering $50 million of its funding
She claims she was fired in
September after discovering the 'illegal financial schemes'
according to the lawsuit obtained by the Los Angeles Times, and
consequently reporting them to Mr Crouch.
Her lawsuit follows a second
by another former employee and Koper in-law, Joseph McVeigh, the
uncle of Mrs Koper's husband, Michael Koper, who detailed the
opulent spending by the Christian network.
According to Mr McVeigh's
accounts filed in his lawsuit, the network used their collections
for side-by-side mansions in Florida, as well as in Texas,
Tennessee and California.
The network's $50 million
luxury jet was purchased through a sham loan while Mrs
Crouch's personal jet, a Hawker, totalled $8 million, according to
his suit.
Dog house: Mrs Koper claims
she was fired after reporting financial irregularities in their
spending which according to one of two suits filed accuses Mrs
Crouch of spending $100,000 on a mobile home for her dogs
The 13 properties listed in
the suit were also referred to as 'guest homes' or 'church
parsonages' while their directors also received $300,000 to
$500,000 in meal expenses, as well as the use of
chauffeurs.
The suit also accuses the
network of using funds to cover up sex scandals according to the
Times' review of the suit.
In a reverse lawsuit filed by
debt-collection company Redemption Strategies last year, the Kopers
have been accused of forging documents to obtain items such as
several vehicles, jewelry, a boat, motorcycle, and life
insurance. The debt collection company was
registered with the state by a TBN attorney one day before it filed
suit against Mr Koper.
They accuse Mr McVeigh of also
receiving thousands of dollars from the non-profit without their
authorization.
That lawsuit against Mr
McVeigh and Mr Koper was later dropped by the court, but not before
Mrs Koper and two in-laws were added as
defendants.
Mrs Koper countersued,
alleging that TBN's attorneys formed Redemption Strategies to
retaliate against her for whistleblowing.
Her suit doesn't list TBN as a
defendant, but it alleges that Mrs Koper was fired and made to turn
over her house, condominium, life insurance policy, car, furniture
and jewelry as 'an act of Christian contrition' when she complained
about the financial misdeeds at TBN.
In the similar suit filed by
Mr McVeigh, he alleges that TBN attorneys also targeted him as part
of a campaign of retaliation for his reporting of their lavish
spending.
TBN attorney Colby May called
the McVeigh's lawsuit a 'tabloid filing' and said the allegations
in both cases were 'utterly and completely contrived.' TBN suspects
McVeigh, who claims he received a $65,000 loan from the family
empire, was working with the Kopers to steal money from the
ministry, Mr May said. 
Attacks: The family feud
could draw further scrutiny of TBN after its previous trouble with
allegations of a homosexual encounter by Mr Crouch and a five-year
battle with the FCC
The network's spending is in
line with its mission to spread the gospel throughout the world, Mr
May said, and the Crouches travel by private jet because they have
had 'scores of death threats, more than the president of the United
States.'
The ministry keeps large
amounts of cash in reserve because incurring debt goes against the
Biblical exhortation to 'owe no man any thing,' he said.
'The answer is, there is no
fire there,' Mr May said. 'They pay as they go and every now and
then one of the things that they pay as they go on is the
acquisition of a broadcast facility and that's a multi-million
dollar transaction.'
The outbreak of legal skirmish
offers a rare window into the secretive world of the sprawling
religious non-profit and exposes a family feud that could draw more
outside scrutiny of TBN. Attorneys from both sides say they have
contacted police and the Internal Revenue Service.
Growth: The network, whose
headquarters is pictured, is seen on every continent but Antarctica
24 hours a day, seven days a week, raking in $92 million in
donations in 2010 and $175 million in tax-free revenue
The Crouches founded TBN in
1973 and grew it into an international Christian empire that beams
prosperity gospel programming — which promises that if the faithful
sacrifice for their belief, God will reward them with material
wealth — to every continent but Antarctica 24 hours a day, seven
days a week.
It has 78 satellites and more
than 18,000 television and cable affiliates and owns seven other
networks, as well as its headquarters in Costa Mesa in Orange
County, an estate outside Nashville called Trinity Music City, USA
and the Holy Land Experience, a Christian amusement park in
Orlando.
On any given day — or night —
viewers from the United States to India can watch
Christian-inspired news updates, documentaries, movies, talk shows
and sermons by preachers such as Benny Hinn, T.D. Jakes and Dr.
Creflo Dollar without leaving their armchairs.
Expenditures: Additional
claims detail the purchase of two jets at a cost of $50 million and
$8 million each, and 13 mansions across the U.S. reported as 'guest
homes' or 'church parsonages'
The lawsuit attention comes at
a bad time for TBN, which has seen viewer donations drop
steeply.
TBN raked in $92 million in
donations in 2010 and cleared $175 million in tax-free revenue, but
its net income plummeted from nearly $60 million in 2006 to a loss
of $18 million in 2010, the most recent year available. Donations
fell by nearly $30 million in the same period — a hit the network
blames on the bad economy.
At the same time, Mrs Koper's
father — the eldest Crouch son — resigned abruptly as vice
president and chief-of-staff late last year. The unexplained
departure of Paul Crouch Jr. roughly coincided with his daughter's
legal battle and came just months after he launched iTBN, a project
to expand the network's online and mobile reach.
TBN places a premium on
privacy and it's almost impossible to divine what is going on
behind the scenes. Yet televangelist empires built largely on
charisma often encounter choppy waters as their founding
personalities age.
Needs: The attorney for Mrs
Crouch, seen shielded by security in New York, said the Crouches
travel by private jet because they have had scores of death
threats, more than the president of the United States
'It's true that in these large
ministries, they do become family enterprises ... and in many ways
that can be a most precarious problem for them,' said David E.
Harrell, a professor emeritus of American religion at Auburn
University, who has written about well-known televangelists.
'Business squabbles, if they're complicated with family squabbles,
can get nasty indeed.'
Mr May dismissed the idea of
family turmoil and said the reason behind the legal fight was
simple: Mrs Koper and her husband stole from the
network.
'They're attempting to create
a diversion and to create as much public spectacle as they can in
the vain hope that this will all get resolved and that's simply not
going to happen,' he said.
TBN's reach and programming
are expansive, but what is more impressive is the amount of money
it receives from viewers — even in a downturn.
Sex scandals: The suit also
accuses the network, whose headquarters is pictured from the
roadside, of using funds to cover up additional sex scandals
according to the Los Angeles Times' review of the suit
During TBN's Praise-A-Thon
earlier this month, a preacher exhorted viewers to bellow 'Fear
not!' three times, count down from 10 and then rush to the phone
with donations. In exchange, he said, they would receive a miracle
from God 'about this time tomorrow.' Within seconds, all 200 phone
lines were busy.
Ministry watchdogs have long
questioned how TBN — which declared more than $800 million in net
assets in 2010 — spends that wealth.
TBN files reports with the
IRS, but the Crouches run nearly two dozen other organizations that
are harder to track and they operate extensively overseas, said
Rusty Leonard, who founded Wall Watchers, an organization that
monitors the financial transparency of church ministries to which
its members donate.
Wall Watchers gives TBN an 'F'
for financial transparency and keeps them on its list of the 30
worst ministries.
Lawsuits: In a reverse
lawsuit filed against Mrs Koper and her husband, they have been
accused of forging documents to steal from the network themselves,
whose Texas location is shown, but that case was dropped by the
court
'They could run a loss like
the one they ran last year for an awfully long time before they
would run out of money,' Mr Leonard said. 'They're basically taking
money from old people and putting it in their pocket and living the
high life.'
TBN is no stranger to outside
scrutiny.
In 1998, the elder Crouch
secretly paid an accuser $425,000 to keep quiet about allegations
of a homosexual encounter. Crouch Sr. has consistently denied the
allegations, which were first reported by the Los Angeles Times,
and has said he settled only to avoid a costly and embarrassing
trial.
In 2000, after a five-year
battle, a federal appeals court overturned a ruling by the FCC that
found Mr Crouch had created a 'sham' minority company to get around
limits on the number of TV stations he could own.
With their termination from
the network, both Mr MacLeod and Mrs Koper plan to file a
wrongful-termination suit according to the Times.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2119493/Private-jets-13-mansions-100-000-mobile-home-just-dogs-Televangelists-defrauded-tens-million-dollars-Christian-network.html