Dead Televangelist Rapist Haunts Word Network Viewers

Trinity Foundation doesn’t normally report on the more salacious side of televangelism, be it Christianity, pseudo-Christianity, or Islam for that matter.  There is more than enough corruption stemming from dark money swishing around in religious organizations (see our “Dark Money…” article). We urge donors to follow the money, but when that’s not possible, follow the scandal.

A huge amount of sexual abuse and sex-trafficking is flying under the radar shielded by government agencies that fail to provide adequate oversight, abusive non-disclosure agreements and threats to fire employees that speak out, and by other means.

Church leaders operating with dictatorial powers, and not in humility, pressure followers for sexual favors. Consider the following examples:

Tony Alamo

Susan and Tony Alamo, PHOTO: GILBERT B. WEINGOURT/ZUMA PRESS/, From a Wall Street Journal article titled “‘Ministry of Evil: The Twisted Cult of Tony Alamo’ Review: Hell on Earth” by Dorothy Rabinowitz

Some televangelists never seem to go away, even after their death.  The late convicted serial statutory rapist and tax evader Tony Alamo is back on television here in the U.S. on media owner Kevin Adell’s religious TV channel “Word Network Church” up to four times weekly.

Alamo passed away on May 2, 2017, while in federal custody.

In 2009, Alamo began serving a 175-year prison sentence in Tucson after being convicted on 10 counts of sex trafficking minors—transporting underage girls across state lines for sex.

A little background:  Though many celebrities such as Johnny Cash, Black Sabbath, and the cast of TV’s Dallas wore jackets purchased from his Nashville country and western clothing store, his organization, Tony Alamo Christian Ministries, was widely regarded as a cult.

His followers worked in Alamo’s many businesses for almost nothing aside from the food they ate.  In 1982 Alamo, who was married at least six times, held a vigil over his wife Susan’s dead body for months, hoping to resurrect her from the dead.

In 1976, the US Department of Labor brought charges against Alamo for violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act.  He lost the suit and an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1985 and the IRS revoked the tax-exempt status of his church retroactively for a prior 4-year period.

However, Alamo’s lawyers fought the IRS ruling in the courts for seven years until 1992 when Special Trial Judge Larry L. Nameroff ruled that the organization during the period in question was essentially “operated for Tony’s and Susan’s private benefit.” From 1994 to 1998, Alamo served four years in prison for income-tax evasion. He later claimed he was imprisoned for preaching the gospel.

So now, the creepy dead guy is back… on a creepy religious TV network!!

Word Network Church—Kevin Adell’s purported “Christian” TV network has faced its own legal troubles. Its tax-exemption was revoked by the IRS in March 2015 retroactive to 2007.  Adell was paid an average yearly salary of $5.4 million from 2008 to 2011. When the TV network realized it was in trouble in 2013, they created a backup plan that went into effect as soon as the revocation took effect—they became a church… Church of the Word, a/k/a Word Network Church—the perfect vehicle to hide its profit motives.

Naasón Joaquín García

L.A. Times photo, from article titled “From An L.A. Prison Phone, La Luz Del Mundo Megachurch Leader Addresses Followers in MexicoBy Summer Lin and Libor Jany 

Convicted child-molester Naasón Joaquín García (N.J.G.) still leads the multi-million-member Mexico-based La Luz Del Mundo (LLDM) church from within prison walls here in the U.S.  N.J.G is believed to be the “Elect” one to connect church members to God.  He is facing sixteen more years in prison and a possibility of more federal charges—read our March article here

The U.S. is home to many dozens and perhaps hundreds of LLDM churches, with 35 in Texas alone.

Continue reading “Dead Televangelist Rapist Haunts Word Network Viewers”

Trinity Broadcasting Network Jet Depreciates $20 Million in Three Years

(Photo: Trinity Broadcasting Network jet at Fort Worth Alliance airport.)

(Correction: The headline has been changed from “Trinity Broadcasting Network Jet’s Value Drops $20 Million in Three Years” to “Trinity Broadcasting Network Jet Depreciates $20 Million in Three Years.” Also, a paragraph has been added providing an IRS definition for depreciation.)

IRS form 990s and audited financial statements prove that churches and ministries waste millions of dollars annually by purchasing business-class jets.

In 2017, Trinity Broadcasting of Florida (TBF), a non-profit affiliate of Trinity Broadcasting Network, replaced its older Bombardier Global Express jet with a newer 2010 model. On its 2017 form 990, TBF reported $8,814,590 in depreciation but did not disclose how much of the depreciation was for aircraft.

For 2018, TBF reported $6,780,942 in airplane depreciation expense. For 2019, TBF reported total $6,846,838 in total airplane depreciation and $6,929,106 for 2020.

In three years the TBF jet depreciated by $20,556,886.

Depreciation totals are not available for 2021 or 2022 as 990s for these years are not yet available.

According to the IRS, “Depreciation is an annual income tax deduction that allows you to recover the cost or other basis of certain property over the time you use the property. It is an allowance for the wear and tear, deterioration, or obsolescence of the property.”

Organizations with lower-priced aircraft also report large losses for aircraft. LIFE Outreach International, the ministry led by James Robison, is the parent organization of Zoe Aviation which owns a Cessna 560XL jet manufactured in 2000.

Zoe Aviation had net operating losses of $782,292 in 2021 and $745,207 in 2020.

 

Foreign Financial Reporting: When Church and Ministry Money Travels to Foreign Countries

Researchers at the Center for the Study of Global Christianity, writing for the International Bulletin of Mission Research, estimate that $55 billion will be spent on foreign missions in 2023. That may seem like a lot, but the same researchers also estimate that Christian religious leaders will embezzle $62 billion in 2023.

Foreign mission organizations are notorious for their lack of transparency. Gospel for Asia, which raises millions of dollars to support missionaries,  doesn’t disclose to donors important financial information such as total annual revenue, total annual expenses or compensation for highly paid executives.

Compounding the problem, American tax laws are poorly understood and poorly enforced, often resulting in noncompliance. If a church operates a mission project in a foreign nation with a foreign bank account and the foreign account exceeds $10,000, the church is required by the Bank Secrecy Act to file a Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts (FBAR).

To make matters worse, if a church or ministry reports a foreign bank account, the report is confidential and cannot be revealed to church or ministry donors. Corrupt religious leaders can engage in international money laundering and the existence of their foreign bank accounts are shielded by privacy laws.

Australian Charity Rules

Some countries such as Australia have stricter laws regarding foreign reporting and foreign expenditures for churches.

In 2022, Hillsong Church employee Natalie Moses turned whistleblower. Moses served as Fundraising & Governance Coordinator for Hillsong Global Corporate Group.

According to Moses’ statement of claim, Brian Houston, the founder and former senior pastor of Hillsong “announced that $10,000 would be given to persons who were his former interns and who had sought to start a ‘Hillsong’ Church in Bucharest, Romania.”

Moses responded by informing a supervisor the direct cash payments to individuals in Romania by Australian non-profit organizations was prohibited.

To avoid violating Australian law, Hillsong Global LLC (an American non-profit limited liability company) transferred the funds. Meanwhile, Hillsong Global does not file a Form 990 disclosing its foreign spending because American churches and church integrated auxiliaries are exempted from filing the non-profit information return.

Moses raised additional concerns that Hillsong was failing to comply with Australian laws.

Australia has adopted Four External Standards which regulate foreign non-profit spending and reporting. Australian churches are not exempt from these standards.

The Australian Charities and Not-for-Profits Commission requires foreign financial records to be “complete, accurate and legible.” Australian churches and ministries should compile a list of all foreign third-party organizations they collaborate with. Non-profit organizations are expected to document criminal and illegal activities committed by employees after misconduct is discovered.

Unfortunately for Australian Christians, these complete records are not available for church donors. Instead, they must be made available to government officials that request them.

The Australian Charities and Not-for-Profits Commission provides basic financial information for Australian churches and ministries, but good luck finding Hillsong Church’s foreign missions expenditures.

(Photo: Hillsong Church Ltd. reporting no foreign expenditures for 2021.)

Continue reading “Foreign Financial Reporting: When Church and Ministry Money Travels to Foreign Countries”

Convicted Child Molester Still ‘Enthroned’ by Millions of Faithful Churchgoers

(Photo: Before his imprisonment for sex crimes, Naasón Joaquín García preached to large audiences in the United States, Mexico and in Central America.)

By Pete Evans, with Luís Treviño

A moment in time: A warm Sunday morning, spring, 2019. 

We (Luis and Pete) go to a Dallas church and realize it’s far from your “normal” sanctuary.  We are ushered into a temple and amidst the expensive architecture—probably worth millions, we immediately notice a gilded, velvet-covered throne front and center-stage, raised up several steps as if it were a true king’s throne.  On the throne are emblazoned the initials—not of Jesus Christ as one might expect—but of N. J. G., Naasón Joaquín García, the 3rd generation “anointed apostle” of the world-wide La Luz Del Mundo (LLDM—“Light of the World”) church organization.

(Photo: La Luz Del Mundo in Dallas after worship has ended.)

Little did we know at the time, that this so-called apostle (of apostasy) was already under investigation by various law-enforcement agencies in the United States for sex-trafficking, child molestation, psychological torture, statutory rape, child pornography, forcible oral copulation of a minor, control by manipulation, etc., etc.  Just a few weeks before Jeffrey Epstein was arrested on sex trafficking charges, Naasón Joaquín García was arrested when he stepped off his own private jet in Los Angeles.[1]

As obvious newcomers, including one non-Latino, we are intercepted and given special treatment and placed on a back row of wooden pews.  Friendly Hispanic ushers encourage us to use our printed bulletins, reading and singing along with the apparently poor but well-dressed and probably hard-working congregation.  The women are dressed modestly in white, wearing long skirts and transparent headdresses of different colors, and the men are dressed in formal business attire, wearing coats and ties.

The sermon and singing appear to lead to a climatic central point of the service when, row-by-row, under direction from the ushers, every single member of the congregation—except us two visitors—begins to form two single-file lines, one section for women and another for men, and pass in front of the throne depositing their tithes and offerings and returning to their seats.  We were not forced to do so.

Continue reading “Convicted Child Molester Still ‘Enthroned’ by Millions of Faithful Churchgoers”

Caller Beware: The Prayer Line Business

Prayer lines are the secret ingredient driving the financial success of televangelism.

In a recent Form 990, Christian Broadcasting Network reported, “In 2020, the prayer center department handled 184,859 outbound and 1,935,522 inbound phone calls. A total of 4,488 people prayed the prayer of salvation with our prayer center employees and 6,677 people rededicated their life to Christ.”

When viewers call the prayer lines, call center employees and volunteers manning phones collect donations and say prayers after obtaining names and addresses.

The harvesting of contact information is a critical component of fundraising. Once a viewer is added to a ministry’s mailing list, solicitation letters are soon to follow.

When a viewer requests prayer for a job or health problem, their prayer need is listed in a database which is later used for generating personalized solicitation letters.

In 1991, ABC Primetime Live broadcast an investigative report featuring a secretly recorded meeting between Jim Moore, head of Response Media, and Trinity Foundation founder Ole Anthony.

The goal of the meeting was to learn the techniques televangelists used to grow their media empires. Moore told Anthony, “Give them something free. You know, we ought to mail you the latest copy of X and get their name and address. New names is the key, new names.”

Continue reading “Caller Beware: The Prayer Line Business”

Trinity Broadcasting Network Embraces Advertising Business Model

After taking the helm of Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN) in 2015, Matthew Crouch discontinued TBN’s annual beg-a-thons,  restructured the network’s organization and made programming changes to appeal to younger audiences. The TV programs of Benny Hinn and Kenneth Copeland were removed from the network and TBN’s flagship program Praise the Lord was renamed to one word: Praise.

In 2018, TBN’s two largest non-profit organizations Trinity Broadcasting of Texas and Trinity Christian Center of Santa Ana reported no advertising revenue. In 2019, the TBN organizations reported a total of $3,368,490 in advertising revenue. In 2020, advertising revenue more than doubled to a total of $7,252,771.


(Photo: TBN advertising revenue spreadsheet compiled by Trinity Foundation)

In 2020, all TBN advertising revenue was reported as unrelated business income which is subject to possible taxation.

TBN advertisers include My Pillow and Vinia.

Donor Beware: Gospel for Asia’s Fine Print

Almost four years have passed since Gospel for Asia (GFA), the global promoter of native missionaries, settled a class action lawsuit for $37 million

GFA has finished paying back $37 million to former donors.

The settlement agreement also required GFA to “publish annual reports of all work accomplished with donated funds.”

While the 2022 annual report is not yet available, we can review the 2021 annual report.

If the annual report is accurate, GFA provided water for 39 million people, sponsored 142,000 children and taught 27,000 women to read. While the reports of charitable activities are impressive, there is no disclosure of how much these activities cost.

The GFA annual report doesn’t disclose total assets, travel costs, legal expenses or other financial numbers that cautious donors may wish to review before giving.

By claiming to be a church or association of churches, GFA also avoids filing the IRS Form 990 which discloses salaries of top ministry executives and features an itemized statement of expenses. *

Understanding Restricted Donations

GFA collects money for constructing church buildings, drilling water wells, supporting missionaries, child sponsorship and livestock. But does the money reach its intended recipient?

As required by the settlement, GFA’s website features a disclaimer which says, “Regardless of particular designations, moneys are raised for ministry purposes, and GFA retains discretion to use donated funds in any manner that serves our charitable objectives.”

Continue reading “Donor Beware: Gospel for Asia’s Fine Print”

List of 100 Highly Paid Evangelical Non-profit Executives

Each January MinistryWatch publishes a list of highly compensated religious non-profit executives. The compensation for 100 employees on the 2023 list ranges from $370,890 to $7,319,371 (David Cerullo of INSP !!).

Seven million plus dollars!!!

America needs to have a serious conversation about excessive compensation in the non-profit world. Many of the highest paid televangelists fail to make the MinistryWatch list because their compensation is secret.

The compensation data is compiled from Form 990s submitted to the IRS. Churches, synagogues and mosques are exempt from filing a Form 990.

In December, ProPublica reported the IRS had a backlog of half a million 990s to release.

Because of the IRS backlog, MinistryWatch’s list features 15 people with 2019 compensation information.

The IRS backlog also affects Trinity Foundation’s investigations adversely. Some of our investigative reports are delayed by lack of current financial data.

The MinistryWatch list provides compelling examples of nepotism in Christian ministry. The Inspirational Network and Glory of Zion International both include three family members working as highly paid executives.

In addition to compensation of executives, the Form 990 also provides a statement of expenses, which helps conscientious donors evaluate the effectiveness of the charities they support.

One of the key metrics for concerned donors is program services. This is the money spent on the mission of the non-profit organization. Program services is determined by subtracting management and fundraising expenses from total expenses.

New Hillsong Podcast Premieres on Groundhog Day

Storyglass, a UK-based studio, has produced an 8-part podcast series about Hillsong, the well-known megachurch that originated in Australia. The first episode of False Profits: Hillsong drops on February 2nd, which is better known as Groundhog Day.

In the first episode Noemi Uribe, a former member of Hillsong, describes the charismatic appeal of Hillsong. In the series, Uribe’s personal stories along with expert commentary from journalist Elle Harding will explain the rapid growth of Hillsong and character flaws of church leaders resulting in scandals.

Episode three will feature a conversation with Trinity Foundation investigator Barry Bowen on the topics of church governance, whistleblower accusations and financial reporting of overseas spending.

International Religious Fraud in the News: African Ponzi Scheming Pastor Reaps 519 Years Imprisonment

Accra, Ghana; last week, 1/18/2023

Various incarnations of Ponzi schemes are not unique to America or guys like Bernie Madoff.  Many experts have told Trinity Foundation that there is more money stolen in the name of God than any other way.

After having been found guilty of 173 counts of conspiracy to commit a crime and defrauding by false pretenses, Reverend Edward Buabeng, a Ghanian pastor and overseer of Liberty Vineyard International Ministries, was sentenced to a total of 519 years—consisting mostly of 8-year terms to be served simultaneously.

The case came to its conclusion after a three-year trial, in which 12 witnesses from over 100 defrauded victims were called to testify against the accused persons.

The main complainants, John and Brenda, were promised a 40% rate of return every three months and invested an equivalent amount of US $13,000 (roughly ₵161,403.02 in Ghanian Cedi currency) into the convict’s company, Career Link Marketers Company Limited.  The legal process began when the couple were unable to collect any money back from the pastor and reported Rev. Buabeng to the police.

Overall, Reverend Buabeng received the sum of GH₵ 2 million according to one article (as of this article $162,601.60 US dollars).  He didn’t deny the allegations against him and initially told police he would refund the money.  Yet he reportedly went into hiding after failing to return the money and was eventually re-arrested, leading to his trial.

The old cliché attributed to Michael Douglas still stands—” If a deal looks too good to be true, it probably is.”

This article relied on the following three African news sources: Melanin News, How Africa News and Ghana Web.