Head of Religious Network Answers Allegations : Trinity Broadcasting Founder, Accused of Unethical Conduct, Calls for Hearing

The founder and president of the Tustin-based Trinity Broadcasting Network has responded for the first time to allegations of unethical conduct and business practices and is demanding a hearing before the Ethics Committee of the National Religious Broadcasters, which is investigating the network.

The Rev. Paul F. Crouch also acknowledged, in a letter to the NRB, that in 1981 “I probably did pray that God would kill anyone or anything that was attempting to destroy the ministry. My prayer has not changed today.”

Trinity, now a 24-hour-a-day Christian programming service, was founded by Crouch and several other backers in 1973. Since then, Crouch has assumed total control of the network, which has experienced spectacular growth and now encompasses more than 100 television stations in the United States and more than 20 overseas stations.

The Times reported Feb. 2 that Crouch and Trinity were the subjects of an investigation by the NRB’s Ethics Committee, in part because of complaints that Crouch used unethical practices in building and acquiring Christian television stations.

Crouch gave The Times two letters of response to Richard Bott Sr., the chairman of the ethics panel. Crouch told Bott he was “deeply grieved and offended by your actions as head of the NRB Ethics Committee,” adding that “I now demand a hearing before your committee.”

Bott has said that Crouch would have 30 days to respond to the complaints before the NRB decided whether Trinity could retain membership in the voluntary organization.

The ethics committee is looking into two formal complaints against the network.

The first, made in a sworn affidavit by the Rev. Keith A. Houser of Irving, Tex., grew out of a dispute over control of an upstate New York television station that is now owned by Trinity. The Federal Communications Commission has ruled in favor of Trinity, but the matter is scheduled to be decided soon in civil court in Poughkeepsie, N.Y.

Houser alleged in court documents that Crouch unethically took over the New York station, which Houser said he founded. Crouch joined with other station board members, Houser alleged, and “cut deals with these parties without my prior knowledge and virtually started a hostile takeover of the television station.”

The second complaint was made in a letter to Bott from Marvin L. Martin, an Orange County resident who said he worked for Crouch for 10 years, until 1981. His duties, he said in the letter, included producing Paul and Jan Crouch’s nightly talk show, “Praise the Lord.”

A copy of Martin’s letter was obtained by The Times.

Martin wrote Bott that before Trinity’s spring fund-raising effort in 1981, “I gave Paul Crouch a letter demanding his and Jan’s resignation because of their moral and financial improprieties. . . .”

Martin declined Monday to elaborate on his letter, and the substance of his allegations could not immediately be confirmed.

In his response, Crouch said he denied “categorically” Martin’s allegations, characterizing them as “mostly fabrications and outright lies from a bitter and sick mind.”

Crouch referred to Martin’s “infamous letter of demand for my resignation . . . he did produce such a letter and I fired him on the spot. His allegations about ‘moral and financial improprieties’ were just as vague then as they are now.”

Once, Martin wrote, at a staff prayer meeting, “Crouch prayed aloud in my presence that God would ‘kill’ a man in the community who had filed for an FCC license to take over TBN’s flagship station” in Orange County.

Crouch acknowledges that “I did pray for the wrath of God to fall on enemies of TBN who at the time were attempting to take the license of KTBN-Channel 40. This would have destroyed the entire ministry, which was just beginning to burst forth with growth. At the time we had four TV stations. Today, eight years later, we have 154. I probably did pray that God would kill anyone or anything that was attempting to destroy the ministry. My prayer has not changed today.”