Religious Broadcasters Ethics Panel Probing Crouch’s Trinity Network

Paul F. Crouch, founder and president of Orange County-based Trinity Broadcasting Network, is the subject of an investigation by the ethics committee of the National Religious Broadcasters, according to Richard Bott Sr., chairman of the committee.

The investigation, examining some of Crouch’s business practices, could lead to his expulsion from the voluntary organization.

“There have been allegations, which we are looking into,” Bott said before this week’s National Religious Broadcasters convention in Washington. Other sources in the organization confirmed this week that an inquiry is under way.

Bott, president of Bott Broadcasting in Independence, Mo., declined to provide details, but according to a 17-page complaint submitted to the ethics committee--copies of which have been provided to The Times--the allegations focus on Crouch’s acquisition and building of new television stations over the past 16 years.

The Tustin-based Trinity network has undergone spectacular growth in the past 16 years. The network and subsidiary organizations own or control more television stations than any other single owner in the country. The network includes 17 full-power UHF stations and more than 75 low-power stations around the country, as well as at least 20 stations abroad.

The committee investigating Crouch held a secret, 14-hour committee meeting in Los Angeles in late September, during the western regional convention of the National Religious Broadcasters, according to one of those who attended the session but asked not to be identified.

The complaint was filed by the Rev. Keith A. Houser of Dallas. Houser has been battling Crouch for the past six years in the courts and before the Federal Communications Commission for control of WTBY-TV, in Poughkeepsie, N.Y.

In his complaint to the National Religious Broadcasters, Houser repeated charges made in a lawsuit and before the FCC alleging that Crouch unethically took over the station, which Houser said he founded. Houser alleged that Crouch joined with other station board members, creditors and a banker and “cut deals with these parties without my prior knowledge and virtually started a hostile takeover of the television station.”

Houser also charged that the takeover was part of “the modus operandi of Paul Crouch in the taking of several other television stations” or building or buying new stations that undermined the audience of existing Christian stations.

Houser’s lawsuit over control of the Poughkeepsie station is scheduled to go to trial soon, he said. There is no action pending before the FCC, which granted Trinity a license to the station without reservation.

The Rev. Phillip A. Crouch, vice president of Trinity Broadcasting Network and brother of Paul Crouch, denied that the organization operated in any unethical fashion.

“We have certainly never wanted to hurt another organization,” he said in a telephone interview. “If we are hurting one (Christian station), we are hurting ourselves. But we don’t feel we are doing this.”

Crouch said his brother, who was in Phoenix on Wednesday, is “a little upset at the NRB for not coming to him first.”

“This is something that upsets him. We’re kind of worrying about their ethics,” he said.

Among other charges made by Houser to the National Religious Broadcasters is that Phillip Little, a private detective employed by Trinity Broadcasting Network, was used to “intimidate” Trinity critics and former employees. In a telephone interview earlier this week, Little, who is chairman of West Coast Detectives Inc. of North Hollywood, acknowledged that he visited various people around the country on Trinity Broadcasting Network’s s behalf but said that he never intimidated anyone.

Any decision the National Religious Broadcasters’ ethics committee reaches may be moot, said Paul Crouch’s longtime Washington attorney, Colby M. May, who handles the network’s dealings with the FCC. He said in a telephone interview that Crouch may quit the National Religious Broadcasters within the next two weeks.

May said he has advised Crouch to quit the National Religious Broadcasters rather than comply with new requirements that by January, 1990, boards of directors must be controlled by individuals “other than those joined by a family relationship, staff or employees.”

Phillip Crouch said his brother has not yet decided about remaining in the National Religious Broadcasters .

National Religious Broadcasters members must submit applications by Feb. 15 to join the organization’s new Ethics and Financial Integrity Commission. The watchdog group, which is not the same committee that is investigating Crouch, was established in the wake of the televangelism scandals of the past two years, and membership in the body is mandatory to remain in the National Religious Broadcasters organization.

All of Trinity Broadcasting Network’s 10 boards are headed by Paul Crouch and dominated by family members and employees.

Times staff writer Michael D. Shear in Washington contributed to this article.