They reveal that the network, funded by small donations from well-meaning viewers, spent US$50 million ($61 million) on a Global Express private jet, US$8 million on a Hawker jet and another US$100,000 on a motor home which - according to the lawsuits - was used to provide a kennel for Jan Crouch's collection of lapdogs.
TBN has also acquired 13 luxurious properties - in venues as far flung as Newport Beach, Florida, and Nashville - and provides its senior staff with Bentleys and 4WDs, for travel purposes, and hundred-thousand-dollar expense accounts for their meals, the lawsuits claim.
The allegations, which a spokesman for TBN called a mixture of misleading tittle-tattle and downright "fabrication", are all the more remarkable because they are being aired by Brittany Koper, the now-estranged granddaughter of Paul and Jan Crouch. Koper was appointed finance director of TBN in July but claims to have been forced to leave the organisation after attempting to "blow the whistle" on allegedly "illegal financial schemes" she stumbled upon during her employment.
She offers an eye-opening take on the corporate culture within the network, which produces programmes watched by millions worldwide and is also the proprietor of a Christian theme park in Orlando, Florida.
At one point, Koper alleges, her uncle Matthew Crouch, who is one of TBN's board members, turned up at a meeting carrying a pistol. He then tapped the weapon while asking "what she thought would happen if she wrote a memo to the board critical of [his] financial improprieties".
During her response, he "continued tapping the gun to ensure that [she] recognised the lethal threat being made", the lawsuit alleges.
Later, Koper, 26, was called into several meetings with a lawyer, David Loe, who has represented TBN and whose firm is the defendant in her lawsuit. She alleges that he "slapped her buttocks", "solicited sexual relations" and "made repeated remarks" about her "breast enhancement surgery". At one point, while supposedly discussing the alleged financial impropriety at TBN, she says that Loe grabbed her breasts "to see if they were real".
The juicy nature of the allegations have prompted an inevitable flurry of interest in TBN, which was founded by Paul and Jan Crouch in 1973, now broadcasts to every continent except Antarctica and, thanks to the generosity of viewers, boasts assets of more than US$300 million.
It grew rich on the proceeds of the so-called "prosperity gospel," a style of televangelism in which charismatic preachers tell viewers to send donations because God will so approve of their generosity that He will grant them good financial fortune in the future.
High-energy fundraising helped TBN raise US$95 million in 2010, the most recent year for which records are available. But it is not without critics. Charles Kimball, a professor of religious studies at Oklahoma University, who closely follows televangelists, says that its "prosperity gospel" preachers prey on desperation.
"This idea that faith can be a quick fix, it's particularly attractive to viewers who are uneducated and may not have very much money in the first place. There's no shortage of people desperately looking for that message."
The website ministrywatch.com, which acts as a watchdog for Christians looking to donate to worthwhile ministries, says it has issued more "donor alerts" for TBN than for any other religious organisation and, on a scale from A to F, rates it F for financial transparency. "The network is a charity, which uses that status to get tax exemptions," says Ministrywatch's founder, Rusty Leonard.
"If you set up such an organisation, you are not allowed to use its resources to benefit yourself. That's called private inurement. It's illegal and it's wrong. I have no idea why the tax authorities do not take this seriously, but they never seem to."
- Independent
