Evangelist Plays Hardball in Christian TV

As he awaits a decision this month on whether he will be allowed to remain a member of the National Religious Broadcasters, Tustin-based televangelist Paul F. Crouch faces a variety of complaints about how employees of his far-flung TV and radio empire have been treated and how the network acquires stations.

Despite Crouch’s contention that “a Christian organization should be held to higher ethical standards,” his network, with more than 400 employees and an annual payroll of nearly $5 million, now faces an investigation by the Ethics Committee of NRB.

Subjects of the inquiry include:

* Reported sex and age discrimination at a TBN-owned station in Tacoma, Wash.

* Complaints that Crouch engaged in a “hostile takeover” to gain control of a locally owned Christian station in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., coercing employees whose testimony before the FCC would jeopardize his operation of the station.

* Crouch’s alleged role in the demise of a unionization effort among technicians at TBN’s broadcast center in Tustin.

Crouch is founder and president of the Trinity Broadcasting Network, which in the past 16 years has grown from a single station in Orange County to a sprawling operation that today includes more than 100 broadcast outlets across the nation and around the world. The manner in which it has grown has been controversial, provoking numerous civil suits brought by ex-partners, suppliers and landlords, and complaints to governmental panels in Washington and half a dozen states.

Virtually all of the suits--including more than a dozen filed in Orange and Los Angeles counties alone--have been settled or withdrawn before reaching trial.

Crouch is quick to react to any perceived threat or challenge with countersuits or strongly worded letters from his own lawyers or with visits from Philip Little, his spokesman who also is a private investigator.

Crouch has never lost a station license, and most complaints to government agencies about TBN have been dismissed or settled, but the ethics panel of the NRB, voluntary trade association of 1,100 religious broadcasters, continues to look into Crouch’s activities. Sources within the committee say its 8-month investigation has focused on at least five separate complaints from former employees, one former partner and at least one minister. The panel’s recommendation to the NRB’s executive board could range from complete exoneration to expulsion from the organization.

The NRB’s stated goals are continued access to the airwaves for religious broadcasters and “that broadcasters observe a high standard of excellence in their programming to present the Gospel clearly.” The organization’s 5-member Ethics Committee is charged with enforcing the NRB’s two-page code of ethics for station owners and operators.

The NRB executive board can accept, reject or modify the Ethics Committee’s recommendation, or simply pass it along to the organization’s full board.

Some of the complaints to the NRB have been denied by Crouch. What he does acknowledge is that he is a frugal businessman, a trait he regularly attributes to “my German blood.”

“A Christian organization also has the responsibility to operate as a good business, using good business practices in negotiating for equipment and parts supplies as any other business would,” Crouch told The Times. “I attempt to negotiate as good a deal as possible when purchasing equipment or obtaining services, as I am accountable to the people that give the money.”

For example, no televangelist who buys time on TBN--regardless of how popular or worthy his message--is allowed to fall more than 90 days behind in payment, Crouch said.

His spokesman also acknowledges that TBN has taken advantage of IRS provisions that permit Crouch, as head of an organization defined as a church, to ordain as ministers TBN’s station managers and department heads, permitting them to deduct 100% of their housing costs as “parsonages.”

TBN workers are not paid extravagantly, with yearly salaries averaging $12,500, which has prompted criticism of what Paul Crouch and his wife Jan are paid. They reported combined salaries of $114,000 in 1987.

“The Crouches are not financially denying themselves, and enjoy a very high style of living,” wrote Hollaine Allen, formerly public affairs director at TBN’s Tacoma station, in a complaint to the NRB Ethics Committee.

Crouch has insisted throughout his ministry that the money he raises be scrupulously accounted for. That diligence, and other steps, have helped him amass a debt-free broadcasting empire that he asserts now has a market value of $500 million.

“The world scratches its head and wonders how we do it,” Crouch said during a recent fund-raising telethon. Part of the answer, he said, is by “driving hard bargains.”

Yet he insists: “There is a balance between being a patsy and being a bully, and it is not the Christian’s position to ever be a bully or use economic power and/or resources to that end.”

Even some of Crouch’s admirers concede his approach can rub people the wrong way.

“Maybe he has gone overboard to make sure the ministry would propagate and go forward,” said Paul Toberty, who guaranteed loans on TBN’s first station and served on the TBN board in the early years and now owns KYMS-FM, a Christian radio station in Orange.

“Maybe he overreacted, and people felt he was taking advantage of them,” Toberty said. “That’s what people object to--a sharp business deal, cutting corners. There’s a fine line between a ministry and the secular. Sometimes it disturbs people who expect a sharp individual in a business deal but not in a ministry deal.”

“A lot of people have problems with the way Paul operates,” said Vickie Berg, a former Tustin employee who worked her way up from receptionist to assistant network program director. “They might look at it as being cutthroat. When I look at it from the corporate world, I see it as being a good businessman. I never saw him hurting anyone or doing anything illegal, and I was very involved there” until leaving in 1978, after 5 years at TBN.

Critics take a harsher view, accusing Crouch of expanding his empire at the expense of others.

Jeffrey Hadden, the author of “Prime Time Preachers: The Rising Tide of Televangelism” and other books on religious broadcasting, said that as a result of the recent fall of Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart, and the drop-off of support for other televangelists, Crouch is now in “the catbird’s seat. . . . And he got there through some scheming and planning.

“The perception that you’re doing God’s work provides legitimacy, in your own mind at least, that the ends justify the means,” Hadden said.

That point of view is prevalent throughout today’s highly competitive world of Christian broadcasting, Hadden said. “There is the appearance of some pretty substantial hardball . . . there’s a lot of stuff that doesn’t look like a Sunday school picnic.”

At the moment, Crouch’s biggest crisis is at TBN’s station in Tacoma, Wash.

Two female employees of KTBW, Channel 20, in complaints to the NRB that were provided to The Times, said they were sexually harassed and that Crouch and others in Tustin did not help them. They later were fired.

Other employees complained to the NRB that wholesale firings took place after TBN’s purchase of the station 2 years ago, despite TBN assurances that staffers could keep their jobs. The complaints to the NRB allege that nearly 50 employees--all but one over the age of 40--have since been terminated or forced to resign.

Four former employees filed complaints of age discrimination with the Washington State Department of Human Resources, charging they were terminated without cause and replaced by younger employees, who were paid less. The state investigation is pending.

In another case, at least three terminated employees were awarded unemployment compensation after a state agency ruled that their dismissals had been without cause.

Tacoma employee Allen complained to the NRB that working for Trinity was like being at “a Southern plantation of pre-Civil War days,” with the Crouches acting as “the master and mistress. . . . “

In March, a spokesman said, Crouch sent two top aides to Tacoma to investigate the complaints. The TBN officials quickly assumed control of the station, suspended the station manager without pay and interviewed employees.

After a 10-day investigation, a spokesman for Crouch said, the station manager was relieved of his duties. The manager declined to comment.

Crouch took such drastic action, said spokesman Little, because he “was extremely concerned because of the appearance of his condoning or knowing about alleged abuses of employees and changes of employee status and jobs.”

Elsewhere in the Crouch network, ex-employees have complained that existing station managers have been fired or moved to make room for Crouch’s family members. In Arizona, the state Department of Economic Security authorized unemployment benefits after finding that the manager of TBN’s Phoenix station, who was replaced by Crouch’s brother Phillip, was fired without cause. At least three Crouch in-laws with no experience in broadcasting--apart from a 2-week training course--have managed television stations in Florida and Oklahoma, the network said.

Faye McCulloch, a secretary/bookkeeper at TBN’s WHFT in Miami, twice complained to Crouch in 1987 about what she believed were improprieties at the station. Two weeks later she was laid off for what the station said were economic reasons.

The manner in which TBN has acquired Christian stations has also been the source of complaints.

In Poughkeepsie, N.Y., Crouch made an offer to buy WFTI, Channel 34, from a local Christian group that was operating it at a loss. One partner, Keith Houser, did not want to sell at the price Crouch was offering. He sued, and in a complaint filed with the NRB ethics panel, Houser alleges that Crouch then “went behind my back and talked with several members of my board of directors, some of my creditors and my banker. He cut deals with these parties without my prior knowledge and virtually started a hostile takeover of the television station.”

In addition to suing, Houser mounted an unsuccessful challenge to the takeover before the FCC. Houser’s complaint to the NRB, which is expected to be decided soon, charged that what happened in Poughkeepsie was part of TBN’s modus operandi, citing similar takeover attempts in Tacoma, Dallas and Baltimore.

In his reply to the Ethics Committee, Crouch said that “TBN stepped in and saved Keith Houser’s station from certain and imminent bankruptcy. . . . If I had been this ‘unethical’ person I have been accused of being, I would have waited for the bankruptcy proceedings and picked the bones clean as the world does. I can assure you (that) we could have secured the station for much less than the approximately $3.5 million we finally invested. . . . (Houser’s) actions are a transparent and hypocritical attempt to extort more money out of TBN.”

After the sale, some technical workers at the New York station said they were coerced by Crouch and other Trinity personnel into signing documents that were needed for the FCC license transfer.

According to sworn affidavits filed before the FCC, three Poughkeepsie employees, including Robert H. Peterson, an engineer, were asked by a Trinity official to sign a document regarding FCC procedures on Aug. 2, 1984.

“I did not want to sign the document as presented to me because I did not believe the document to be accurate,” Peterson said. “I said that I would like time to consult my attorney before I signed the document.”

Four days later, Peterson said, Crouch personally asked him to sign a similar document, and again Peterson declined.

“Mr. Crouch then strongly suggested to me that I should signed the document because he knew New York law and that if I did not sign his affidavit by 6 p.m. that day, he would be legally within his rights to dismiss me,” jeopardizing any possible unemployment compensation.

Feeling “under extreme fear and duress,” Peterson made enough changes in the document “so I would not later perjure myself” and signed.

The NRB ethics panel also is looking into reports that Crouch was vindictive against employees who wanted to unionize.

Disgruntled technical workers at TBN stations in Orange County and New York attempted to organize bargaining units, filing petitions and unfair labor practice complaints against Trinity with the National Labor Relations Board. In both cases, the board ultimately declined to assume jurisdiction because of Trinity’s status as a religious organization. Most of the employees at both stations eventually lost their jobs and were replaced by less experienced workers at lower pay, according to various complaints filed by former workers with the Federal Communications Commission, the NLRB and the NRB.

In a Feb. 10 letter to the Ethics Committee, Crouch responded to what he called “the charges that Jan and I were abusive to employees,” especially in Tustin in the late 1970s:

“An attempt was made by 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 NLRB had no jurisdiction. . . . “

Five or six of the workers, Crouch wrote, “did resign when they realized that their attempt had failed, but no one was fired by TBN for their actions. . . . Nearly all of 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.”

Disgruntled employees were not the only problem at the Tustin station, which faced a serious challenge to its license in 1983.

Because of actions attributed to a TBN employee, the network was fined $5,000 for moving KTBN’s studios from Fontana to Santa Ana without prior approval by the FCC, the commission said in a ruling. More significantly, this error enabled a competing group of broadcasters to challenge TBN for the station, citing among other things untrue information filed to the FCC by the same employee, who subsequently was fired.

As in the case of the Bakkers, Crouch saw the divine hand in the renewed battle. In the February letter responding to the Ethics Committee, Crouch acknowledged that in 1983 “I did pray for the wrath of God to fall on enemies of TBN who at the time were attempting to take the license. . . . This would have destroyed the entire ministry which was just beginning to burst forth with growth. . . . I probably did pray that God would kill anyone or anything that was attempting to destroy the ministry. My prayer has not changed today.”

The FCC did not take the station from TBN but an administrative law judge criticized Crouch for his “abdication of . . . responsibility.” Crouch later said the effort to keep his license cost more than $1 million.

Closing out TBN’s semi-annual “Praise-athon” early Saturday morning, a weeklong affair that raised pledges of more than $28 million, Crouch told viewers that the broadcast ministry was under greater attack now, primarily by unnamed Christian leaders and organizations, than at any time in its history. But he said he was fully prepared for the challenge.

“I’m a lot tougher than I was 16 years ago,” he told viewers, “and I’m not going to change my modus operandi now . . . This mighty steamroller called TBN . . . this big machine is moving . . . it’s roaring down the highway!”