Televangelist Demands Ethics Panel Hearing : Trinity Network Founder Is ‘Grieved and Offended’ by Unethical Conduct Allegations

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.

Televangelist 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 14 full-power commercial stations, three educational stations and more than 90 low-power television stations in the United States, along with more than 20 overseas stations.

On Feb. 2 The Times reported that Crouch and TBN were the subject 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.

In the first of two letters of response to Richard Bott, Sr., chairman of ethics panel, Crouch said 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.” TBN provided copies of both letters to The Times.

Bott, president of Bott Broadcasting of Independence, Mo., was traveling Monday and could not be reached for comment. However, in an interview last week, Bott said that Crouch would have 30 days to respond to the complaints before the NRB would decide whether TBN could retain membership in the voluntary organization.

The ethics committee is looking into two formal complaints against TBN.

The first, made in the form of 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 four-page 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 the nightly talk show “Praise the Lord,” which featured Crouch and his wife Jan.

Martin said in the letter, a copy of which was obtained by The Times, that 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 independently confirmed.

Both Houser and Martin testified before a closed meeting of the ethics committee in Los Angeles in late September. Crouch expressed outrage that copies of the two complaints were leaked to The Times.

“At a minimum,” Crouch wrote to Bott, “I feel ethics charges should be brought against you and your ethics committee as well as Keith Houser and Marv Martin.”

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. What are these improprieties? Let my accusers come forward if they can!”

Martin alleged that in the mid-1970s, as TBN became more successful, a number of employees complained to him about the pay scale at the network. “Employees were constantly complaining to me that their families were hurting,” he wrote.

When a group of these employees attempted to organize, Martin wrote, the Crouches took action against them.

The way Crouch recalled the incident, “an attempt was made by a handful of disgruntled production employees to form a labor union attempting to force raises which the ministry could not afford. We resisted these attempts and proved that the (National Labor Relations Board) had no jurisdiction over a . . . tax-exempt ministry organization. A few (five or six) did resign when they realized that their attempt had failed but no one was fired by TBN for their actions. . . . Nearly all the employees involved have since returned to ask my forgiveness for the harm and dissension they caused. Jan and I freely have forgiven and continue to work with some of the employees in question.”

Officials of the NLRB could not immediately be reached to comment on the case.

Martin also wrote that “at one staff prayer meeting in the TBN chapel, Paul 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). Paul Crouch said that those who opposed him or did anything to hurt the Trinity Broadcasting Ministry were ‘coming against God’s anointed.’ ”

Crouch acknowledged that “one of Martin’s charges is true. 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, 8 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.”

Last week, in place of a scheduled live telecast of “Praise the Lord,” the network substituted a year-old tape which included Paul Crouch accepting an award on behalf of TBN from the National Religious Broadcasters at their 1988 national convention in Washington. Before the award was made in 1988, the ethics committee voted unanimously to withhold the award, according to a committee member, but their recommendation was overruled by the NRB’s executive committee after a stormy meeting with Crouch.

The Rev. Philip Crouch, Paul Crouch’s brother and vice president of TBN, said in a telephone interview last week that he did not make the decision to run the year-old tape but that he assumed the purpose in airing it at this time was “to kind of settle anyone’s fears that we were in good standing with the NRB.”