Sex scandals are merely crumbs from the table of a lawsuit filed this week against Trinity Christian Center of Santa Ana, which includes allegations that founders Paul and Jan Crouch fetched a $50 million jet through a "sham loan to an alter ego corporation" and that a $100,000 motor home was purchased for Jan's pooches.
Joseph McVeigh filed the suit in Orange County Superior Court against the company (which does business as Trinity Broadcasting Network), International Christian Broadcasting and Davert & Loe, the Long Beach-based law firm named in a federal lawsuit filed by Crouch granddaugher Brittany Koper, who alleged that the attorneys, who perform legal work for Trinity, unlawfully distributed more than $50 million to the company's directors.
McVeigh, who is Koper's uncle by marriage, alleges that Trinity lawyers "falsely and maliciously" sued him over a loan from Trinity, in retaliating against Koper for blowing the whistle on the company's alleged financial misdeeds.
Koper is the former chief financial officer, director of finance, corporate treasurer and director of human resources for the company, who also accuses attorney David C. Loe of sexually assualting her on multiple occasions in front of witnesses, including grabbing her breasts during a business meeting to "see how they feel."
Koper claims she was fired for calling foul on the alleged illegal activity. McVeigh alleges that at one point, Paul Crouch informed Koper and her husband that Jan and son Matthew Crouch "want your heads", referring to the Biblical account of John the Baptist getting beheaded by King Herod after he rebuked the king for transgressions.
McVeigh, who says in the suit that he has never worked for Trinity or its affiliates, alleges that Koper was promoted to head of finance because Trinity wanted somebody "within the family" who would keep its financial "skeletons" safely in the "closet."
McVeigh's lawsuit, which was first reported by the Orange County Register, alleges "multiple cover-ups of sexual and criminal scandals" including: the destruction of evidence concerning a bloody sexual assault involving Trinity and its affiliated Holy Land Experience employees; the cover-up of Jan Crouch's affair with a staff member at the Holy Land Experience; the cover-up of director Paul Crouch's use of Trinity funds to pay for a legal settlement with Enoch Lonnie Ford, the the former Trinity employee who claims he had a homosexual affair with Paul Crouch; the cover-up following Matthew Crouch's [he's also a director] exposure of his genitals to cleaning staff on multiple occasions; under-the-table payments to avoid liability and punitive damages in the ongoing David Rhodes wrongful death suit, including payments funneled through All American TV, Inc., a nonprofit corporation controlled by Trinity lawyer John Casoria.
The suit alleges that Trinity has a gluttonous appetite for the things of this world, from multiple residential estates [including ones in Newport Beach and Miami] falsely reported as guest homes or church parsonages to "avoid income disclosures", to meal expenses up to $500,000 for each of the company's directors, as well as "multiple backchannel distributions, kickbacks, and related schemes, such as tens of millions of dollars distributed through a company owned by TBN director Matthew Crouch, called Gener8xionEntertainment..."
In addition to Fido's motor home, the suit alleges that Trinity directors unlawfully received and did not report multiple vehicles, including "the latest Bentley recently purchased by Trinity Broadcasting for director Paul Crouch, Sr.; the most recent Denali purchased by Trinity Broadcasting for director Janice Crouch; a new Suburban recently purchased by Trinity Broadcasting for director Matthew Crouch; and numerous other vehicles..."
McVeigh is seeking damages for financial loss, attorney's fees, loss of reputation and punitive damages.
Responding to a phone call to Davert & Loe's office, Colby May, an attorney for Trinity, said the lawsuit is an attempt to divert attention from the Kopers allegedly embezzling money from the company. He said their cohorts may include McVeigh.
"There is no merit to the suit," May said. "It is very contrived."
In October, Davert & Loe filed a lawsuit against Michael Koper, Brittany's husband, alleging that he forged documents to misappropriate roughly $400,000. The suit was filed on Oct. 18 by Redemption Strategies Inc. According to the secretary of state's office, Loe formed Redemption Strategies on Oct. 17.
The suit was dismissed in January.
May said McVeigh and the Kopers can "huff and puff" and bring as many "frivolous" lawsuits as they want, but they are "going to have their day of reckoning as it comes, and there is nothing they're going to do to prevent that."
