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Suit: Trinity Broadcasting Network board diverted millions from ‘charitable assets’

ReligionNewsBlog.com • Sunday February 12, 2012

The granddaughter of Trinity Broadcasting Network’s Paul and Jan Crouch has accused the world’s largest Christian broadcaster of unlawfully distributing charitable assets worth more than $50 million to the company’s directors.

The Orange County Register reports

The charges are leveled in a federal lawsuit filed by Crouch granddaughter Brittany Koper last week against her former lawyers, who also do legal work for TBN.
“Observers have often wondered how the Crouches can afford multiple mansions on both coasts, a $50 million jet and chauffeurs,” said Tymothy MacLeod, Koper’s attorney. “And finally, with the CFO coming forward, we have answers to those questions.”
Koper had served as chief financial officer, director of finance, corporate treasurer and director of human resources for Trinity Christian Center of Santa Ana, which does business as Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN), according to the suit.
Koper’s complaint is not directed against her grandparents or TBN — but against the two attorneys who handle some of TBN’s legal work, and who once worked for Koper herself. She accuses them of professional negligence, breach of fiduciary duty and other transgressions in the suit.
Koper was using these attorneys for her personal affairs, and she went to them with her suspicions over the legality of the payments to TBN’s directors, only to be told to shut up, return everything she had earned through TBN to the company, and be gone, according to the suit. [...more...]

Koper’s complaint is for

Breach of Fiduciary Duties
Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress, and
Professional Negligence

In her complaint Koper also accuses attorney Douglass S. Davert of Davert & Loe in Long Beach, California of lewd behavior toward her. The complaint says he ‘touched her in an overtly sexual manner repeatedly, told Ms. Koper that he was sexually aroused, made lewd and derogatory comments about engaging in sexual acts with Ms. Koper, and offered illegal drugs to Ms. Koper.

In 2009, Koper’s attorney Tymothy McLeod represented Brian Dugger, a gay broadcast engineer who sued the Trinity Broadcasting Network in 2009, claiming he was harassed and discriminated against by TBN employees as well as Paul Crouch Jr. A confidential settlement in the case was reached in 2010.

Trinity Broadcasting Network

Trintiy Broadcasting Network (TBN), led by founders Paul and Jan Crouch, is the world’s largest religious TV network.

TBN claims to be a Christian ministry, but promotes such an incredible amount of aberrant and heretical material that it is often referred to as “The Blasphemy Network.”

Prominent among TBN’s extremist Word-Faith teachings is its emphasis on the so-called Prosperity Gospel — essentially a scam.

Federal Lawsuit: Brittany Koper complaint re. TBN
Trinity Broadcasting, in tightening times, pays family members more than $1 million (Aug. 12, 2009)
Research resources on the Trinity Broadcasting Network