Ole’s at it again.
Ole Anthony and his cohort at the Trinity Foundation are behind Senator Charles Grassley’s current investigation of six prominent televangelists. As a ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, Grassley has sent letters to Benny Hinn, Kenneth Copeland, Paula White, Joyce Meyer, Bishop Eddie Long and Creflo Dollar demanding answers to detailed questions about their expenditures, financial practices, credit card statements and other personal information going back years. Anthony told reporters the Trinity Foundation gave Grassley enough material “to fill a Volkswagen.”
Former Ole-ites contacted the Dallas Observer to point out that, in fairness, Grassley should ask Anthony the same questions. The media watchdog demands transparency of other ministries, but the foundation, they say, has had its own serious financial problems.
“What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander,” says Doug Duncan, once Anthony’s right-hand man. Wendy Duncan, his wife and also a former member, is the author of I Can’t Hear God Anymore, a book that describes the Trinity Foundation as a cult.
Doug Duncan describes Trinity’s most egregious financial transgression as defaulting on $42 million in tax-exempt revenue bonds issued in 1998 for the organization’s purchase of 13 apartment complexes in Oklahoma City.
Issued by the Oklahoma County Finance Authority, the bonds were available to Trinity because it was a charitable organization with the stated mission of helping the homeless.
“It was a federal project, underwritten by the government,” says Duncan. “This is public money being misused.”
[…continue reading at the Dallas Observer…]