Background:

Well known for his infamous supposed faith healings, Benny Hinn was born in the country of Israel and his family later moved to Canada.  While in Canada he was invited to a Katherine Kuhlman Crusade in Pittsgurgh PA where he became enamored with her preaching style and the idea of being a preacher.  He soon aped her style.

From its founding in September 1983 until approximately 1988 Benny Hinn’s Orlando Christian Center (OCC) operated in a manner similar to most Pentecostal churches in this country.  Members of the church corporation included anyone who professed Christ.  Members participated in an annual business meeting, approved the budget of the corporation, and approved large capital expenditures.  In 1987, Hinn family members had gained a majority on the board of directors (three of five).

By 1988 the board of directors had gradually amended the articles of incorporation to exclude the annual approval of budget or any capital expenditures by members (only the board members).  In other words, church donors no longer had any real say in the corporation. View the amendments to the articles here as the church transitioned from members having a say to the church being run board members controlled by Hinn himself.

Before 1991 Benny was performing healing “crusades” to sold-out crowds in auditoriums and other churches.  Benny Hinn Media Ministries (BHMM) began in 1991 as a d.b.a./trade name for OCC.  It was later simplified to Benny Hinn Ministries.

On an April 1993 Inside Edition broadcast, Hinn promised Trinity Foundation president Ole Anthony and Inside Edition cameras he would have medical verification of the healings before televising the testimonials.  A few weeks later, Hinn told Paul Crouch and Trinity Broadcasting viewers he would stop driving a Mercedes Benz and start driving a Honda.  A month following the Inside Edition exposé, Hinn made some more promises in a televised broadcast of his church service.  He told his congregation “I think I’m going to stop preaching healing and start preaching Jesus.” He also said, “Preachers who live in big houses and drive big cars have to reexamine their calling.  Some of God’s saints lived in caves!”

A few months later we noticed that Pastor Hinn was still broadcasting unverified healings.  Ole Anthony called Mr. Hinn’s brother Christopher and asked him about Pastor Hinn’s promise to verify healings before broadcasting them.  Benny Hinn said, through his brother, “If I did what Ole wants me to do, I wouldn’t have any healings to air”. That is when we (Trinity Foundation) began proactive investigations of Hinn’s ministry.

Undercover in Hinn’s ministry:

During the late fall of 1996, Trinity Foundation Investigator Pete Evans worked undercover in Hinn’s then World Outreach Church as an usher and as a press operator for Benny Hinn Ministries.  One early Sunday afternoon following church, Evans was directed by Hinn’s employee David Delgado to stand guard in front of Hinn’s office and ask church members not to knock on Hinn’s door, that Hinn was too tired to speak with visitors.

While working undercover, Evans assisted reporters John Camp and Graham Messick of (pre-political) CNN with an exposé of Hinn and his ministry.

The evening Hinn’s finances went dark:

On December 18th, 1996, Evans attended a church business meeting immediately following a Wednesday night church service directed by Hinn’s associate Gene Polino and a lawyer named Steven Beik.  Questions were fielded from the audience.  Polino was asked about a gated wrought iron fence being constructed around the church property, about a recent newscast about a protester arrested out front of the church, about whether Benny Hinn Ministries was a part of the church (“Yes”), and “were the finances of the church public knowledge?”

To the last question, Gene Polino responded that “our detractors’ such as some people in the news media, etc. use that knowledge to hurt us and we have chosen to protect ourselves in that area.  He went on to say that anyone who is a member of the church and’or a contributor to WOC or BHM can come to his office and ask him any question or ask to see any ledger and he would share that information. Evans field notes from that meeting are here.

November 1998: BHM sues a man Hinn hired to investigate his ministry:

This December 9th 1998 Orlando Sentinel article, Benny Hinn Tries to Keep Ex-Aide Quiet, will leave readers very curious about what Hinn’s ministry was hiding. 

A November 1998 lawsuit filed by Hinn’s ministry states he hired a man named Mario Licciardello to investigate “wrongdoing and corruption concerning the handling of offering money”.   Court papers showed Licciardello conducted sworn interviews with at least 35 current and former church (BHM) employees and the ministry demanded all investigative materials be returned.  Hinn’s chief financial advisor at the time stated that Licciardello’s allegations based on the interviews “would be devastating to the ministry. It would lose 30 percent of its revenues immediately. The potential for loss is up to 80 or 90 percent of its revenues.”

The article reported from court papers that Licciardello also referred to Hinn in court papers as a “stain on the body of Christ,”and statements from the ministry’s spokesperson, David Brokaw.  Brokaw said that church officials never suspected any money was taken and stated, “None. There was no theft and no corruption”.

An Orlando Sentinel article two days later, Hinn Church at Odds with Lawyers further confused the issue.  In what appears to be an attempt at damage control, a Hinn spokesman claimed that Hinn’s own lawyers (Lowndes, Drosdick, Doster, Kantor & Reed) were mistaken when they stated that an investigation into corruption in the ministry resulted in the firings of “several high level employees”. 

Hinn’s attorney Steven Beik who served on his board of directors said that several top aides had stepped down after (Licciardello’s) investigation but that it had nothing to do with (Licciardello’s) investigation.  The top aides who left included the former chief operating officer, Gene Polino, and the head of international crusades, Charles McCuen, according to Mr. Beik.

2002, 2004 Dateline NBC asked Trinity Foundation to help with an exposé of Hinn

More here about the Dateline pieces

Investigations 2004-2006; The Dumpster That Kept On Giving; Hinn’s 2004 compensation

What began as a few trips searching for a particular law firm’s trash dumpster quickly turned profitable for our investigations.  We discovered a dumpster shared by multiple offices, including the Brewer, Brewer, Anthony, & Middlebrook law firm (A/K/A Brewer, Anthony, Middlebrook, & Dunn; A/K/A Dennis G. Brewer, Sr. P.C. and Associates) in a short high-rise building that yielded plentiful correspondence between the lawyers and their client televangelists and mega-church ministers,  the tail numbers of televangelist jets, scandals in the making, televangelist’s high-dollar compensations, and much more.

In 2004, while dumpster diving, Trinity Foundation investigator Pete Evans obtained a document reporting that Benny was paid $30,000 a month for consulting work through Clarion Call Marketing, Inc.

In February 2005, Trinity Foundation investigators found another shredded document in the trash disclosing Benny’s salary from World Healing Center Church to be $1,325,000. Suzanne received a salary of $165,000. Hinn’s daughter Jessica and husband Michael Koulianos were also on the organization’s payroll for a total of $155,000 bringing the family’s compensation to over $2 million, when including consulting fees.  Trinity Foundation thanks Ritchie Sullivan for his efforts piecing together that and other shredded documents.