I have no debt. I live in a 25 room mansion. I have my own six million dollar yacht. I
have my own private jet and I have my own helicopter and I have seven luxury automobiles
so I never get bored having to drive the same car more than once in a given week. We believe
we received that money and we went from that place of prayer thanking God for it. We spoke
to the angels of God and we charged them to go and cause the money to come to us and we
thank God for our deliverance. We thank God that we were out of debt. You need to make
a dollar a faith of a thousand dollars. Oh Bob, couldn't you say 25? No! If you need
some money, I wouldn't change that dollar. I look at you and I see money. Did you know
that if you want to feed 5,000 people under normal circumstances, you don't need a multiplication
of the fishes and the loaves? What you need is money. I've heard a lot of people criticize
a lot of the American preachers but I tell you what, some of those American preachers
give more in one month to foreign missions than all of the preachers in this country
put together in five years. Giving to God is a part of our worship and we should worship
God with our gifts. Easy to sit on the one side and to criticize a way of operating but
then you better go and replace what they're doing because the gospel is going out and
the finances are being released into the work of God. You steal my offering for this ministry
and you'll die. I'm telling you right now, you're touching God's money, don't you touch
one of the buttons. Your hand will fall off and your tongue will stick to the roof of
your mouth and you'll wonder as a beggar for the rest of your life. It's God's money. In
the book of Acts chapter 5, two people drop dead in an offering. My question is, Jesus
never asked for money, why do you? Well Jesus didn't have a TV program. A thousand dollar
vow of faith, big deal. We got people on welfare, it's got enough faith to make a thousand dollar
vow and paying it. Hello and welcome to part two of the Signs and Wonders Movement Exposed.
My name is Mark Havell. In part one of this series we looked at the miracle and healing
ministry of charismatic leader Benny Hinn to see whether God is really healing through
his ministry. We saw that only people with psychosomatic disorders were cured and although
those in distress often experienced a reduction of pain or an absence of symptoms when hypnotized,
commonly called slaying in the spirit, the changes in their condition disappeared when
they were examined at a later date. Among all the people put forward by Hinn as testimonies
of miraculous healing, when checked at a later date, the medical evidence to prove their
healing could not be produced. It is also important to note that no testimonies of organic
healings like missing limbs, profound deafness, Down syndrome or other incurable disorders
have ever been produced. Isn't it strange that where the Holy Spirit is supposed to
be moving in great power today, he is not achieving better results than secular hypnotists?
Jesus was able to heal all manner of diseases. Clearly it is not the Holy Spirit at work.
But would the Holy Spirit ever work through such dishonest people anyway? The so-called
testimonies we all hear about are simply retold over and over again without anybody ever checking
if they are true. As Spirit-filled Bible-believing Christians, our duty is to test all things,
including a move of the Holy Spirit, if that is what is being claimed. God Himself commands
us to do so. Miracles have long been the bait of the signs of wonder's movement, and while
people still believe in their phony miracles, the false miracle workers will stay in business.
Many believe the charismatic renewal to be the last great move of God. And under the
banner of revival and preaching the Gospel to the world, billions of tax-free dollars
are being raised to spread the word. But does all this money go to the work of the Gospel?
And who is the real inspiration behind the mail shots that come through your door? Do
those anointed preachers really receive their messages from the Lord?
In the first program, we ended with a brief look at the financial empire of Benny Hinn
and the illusion of miracles he maintains to squeeze money from his followers. We continue
this second program with a closer look at the subject of money and the kind of men who
financially exploit Christians just as the Scriptures warn. In 2 Peter 2.3 it says,
And through covishness they shall with feign words make merchandise of you, whose judgment
now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not. The NIV says it
like this, In their greed these teachers will exploit you with stories they have made up.
As you are about to see, this is exactly what they are doing. This may well be one of the
saddest videos you ever watch. Researching the material for this program left me in tears.
It is a heartbreaking story of lies, manipulation and greed. Do not make the same mistake many
make by assuming it is only a few leaders in this movement who are wrong. The Word of
Faith, Signs and Wonders movement is a corrupt religious empire. For every faith preacher
you stop supporting, there are a dozen new stars waiting to replace him. You must, based
on the evidence, reject the whole thing. For, if the root is evil, then the tree can never
produce anything but bad fruit. And it is not just the ministries that are rotten, but
the message, the gospel of greed, sustained by fraudulent healing claims. While the faces
continue to change, the message and the methods do not. Of course, no one would deny a minister
making a modest living or having contributors that fund genuine missions, but what percentage
of this money really ends up putting food in the mouths of the poor, and gospel tracts
and Bibles in lost hands. Although it can sound very impressive when a ministry claims
to have donated half a million dollars to worthy causes, such statements diminish in
weight if those same ministries actually take 50 million a year and spend millions on salaries
and expenses that personally benefit the minister. The main part of this program shows the scandalous
ministries of Robert Tilton, W. V. Grant and Larry Lee. Tilton and W. V. Grant are not
as well known in the UK as Larry Lee and similar charismatic leaders, but the principles remain
the same for all who follow their methods and preach the same message. Those who lie,
commit fraud and steal from the poor, such people cannot be anointed by God. Jesus warned,
by their fruit ye shall know them.
This is W. V. Grant, the miracle preacher. He raises people from wheelchairs. He can
even make a stunted leg grow. What Grant didn't know was that our hidden cameras were with
him to reveal the tricks behind what he calls miracles and the truth behind his fundraising
for orphans in Haiti. So you get no money from Reverend Grant. He doesn't come here.
He does nothing for your children. I want to know! You'll meet Larry Lee, who tells
his followers if they're suffering, the best time to reach into their pockets and give
money is now. The best time to sow is when you're hit. Last summer, he even shared a
personal agony, walking viewers through the shocking remains of his house that had burned,
telling them he lost everything. When they said your house is just burning the ground,
a big old smile came to my face. I said, God is going to work a miracle for me and my family.
Could this be it? A 5.1 acre miracle? The ministry's other estate that didn't burn
at all. He may have faith in God. He ought to have faith that the internal radio service
doesn't find out about this. You've never met anyone quite like Robert Tilton before.
He leads one of the country's most popular TV ministries. He takes in millions of tax-free
dollars. As those that mess with me, they're messing with the apple of God's eye. He says
he has divine inspiration about what viewers need and how much they should give him. You
need to make a $5,000 value. But an old buddy of Tilton's remembers how in college it was
all a big joke. Oh, dear God, come into this young woman's life, hell tonight. Tonight,
we take hidden cameras into Tilton's ministry, from his offices to the marketing company
he uses to his luxurious homes. You'll see how the businessman deposits followers' money
directly into the bank, but has a shocking place for their prayers and dreams. And tonight,
new information on the three televangelists. He has got to know inside that he's a phony,
that he's taken people. I think he has become cynical. Including more former employees of
Robert Tilton, who come forward to say he's not what he pretends to be. From ABC News,
bankers Diane Sawyer, Sam Donaldson, chief correspondent Chris Wallace, Judd Rhodes,
Jay Shadler, Sylvia Chase, and John Quinones. This is Prime Time. Prime Time. From New York,
Diane Sawyer. Good evening. Sam is away tonight. Last November, we brought you our four-month
investigation of three television ministries. Well, tonight, you're going to see those ministers
again, and hear what's happened since our report. As we said at the time, the United
States was founded on the principle of religious liberty. The laws give wide latitude to religious
institutions here, even ones that use the public airways to raise tax-free funds. There's
very little monitoring of what they broadcast, and the topic is too hot for Congress to handle.
So Prime Time called through bank transactions, property records, databases, traveled with
hidden cameras from Dallas to the banks of Oklahoma, to Poland and Haiti. We still want
to make it clear that we are in no way questioning faith or religious beliefs of any kind. In
fact, many of the people who helped in this investigation are devout members of religious
organizations, but they believe it's important to know the facts. So we took this close look
at three ministries to see if the things being said and implied on the air were true. We
began with a man best known as a healer, W. V. Grant. It's up to you. The words that you
can have what you say and what you think. As a man thinker, so is he. Hallelujah. W.
V. Grant is an old-fashioned second generation singing revival preacher. He's a healing
Jesus, a healing Jesus. Grant is a faith healer who appears on TV all across the country.
And his followers travel miles to see him and give a lot of money because they believe
in his miracles. In the name of Jesus. Brother Levi, why don't you stand up? You can do it.
They see Grant raising people out of their wheelchairs. In the name of Jesus. He throws
away their canes. He can even make a stunted leg grow in a matter of seconds. Grant says
it's God who tells him the names to call out of the audience and what illnesses have to
be healed. We wanted to know more about Grant's miracles and his money. So we decided to begin
by taking hidden cameras into film a week of his services. We discovered that before
every service, Grant and his associates circulate informally among the friends and family of
the sick, making notes or even casually interviewing the people who will later be healed. We saw
Grant gather information on more than 35 people he later seemed to identify by revelation
from God. But if pre-interviews explain the revelations, what explains the healing? We
observed that Grant uses a series of artful deceptions and tricks. For example, we saw
Grant walk up to this man during the service and hold up his cane. He healed him and told
him to run down the aisle. The crowd thunders applause, but let's look at that again. Grant
isn't grabbing the cane of the man, he's grabbing the cane of the woman in the next seat. Outside,
the man told us his problem was with his arm. He had never had any trouble walking. And
when we questioned the people Grant had lifted out of wheelchairs, everyone we talked to
said they could walk all along. So we wondered, why don't they speak up? Why don't they say,
wait a minute, I know how you know my name? No, they won't do that. These two people asked
that their identities be hidden, including their voices, though the words are all their
own. They worked for Grant, knew him very well, and say he knows that religious people
want to preserve the illusion and won't give him away. So this little boy, who is in fact
confined to a wheelchair for life, left the service without any miracles offered for him.
And there's something else we want to show you. Here's what happened when Grant called
up this woman. Her name is Diane Doherty. Grant hadn't talked to her, but before the
service, he had talked to this woman, her friend, Kelly Sutherland. He didn't know that
both of these women worked for Primetime. Has she been sick? She slipped a disc last
year and has been in pain ever since. She was lifting a suitcase. But when Grant called
Diane up, it seemed the information had just come into his head. This disc is not in line
with the rest of it. In fact, Diane doesn't have back pain. She said this because we'd
noticed in every service, Grant amazed the crowd when he detected that someone with back
pain had one leg shorter than the other. Sure enough, he decided Diane had the problem too.
The leg on this side because of the slit, this is a little bit shorter than the leg
on that side. You're about to see an old magician's trick. As Diane sits down, Grant grabs her
shoe, pulls out the heel of the shoe to make the leg look longer. As he prays, he slowly
pushes the heel of the shoe back in, giving the illusion that the short leg has grown.
There it is, in the name of Jesus, hallelujah! They don't keep it down. And every miracle
means money for Grant. We watched thousands of people, people with cancer, leukemia, elderly
unfixed incomes line up to give money. Sources say the ministry takes in six to ten million
dollars a year, much of which Grant takes out for himself. I just want to make sure
that I understand this correctly though. Over the years, he has pocketed, that's his personal
spending money then, hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars. Yes. What would he
do with this money? Is he a big spender? It would be nothing for him to spend fifteen
hundred dollars for a suit. I knew of one instance where there was a Mercedes bought
in Fort Lauderdale, Florida for eighty-four thousand dollars. Did he pay in cash? Cash,
cash money. And here is the million dollar mansion where the Grants now live, just one
of several properties his ministry owns. And even as Grant was sending out this fundraising
letter one Christmas, begging followers for money, saying he had to borrow ninety-nine
dollars, according to documents obtained by Primetime, he was buying his second Ferrari,
a 1990 model that lists at one hundred and five thousand dollars. Faith healing isn't
the only way Grant gets followers to give money. For decades, he's touched their hearts
with his televised appeals for food and clothes for the orphans of Haiti. This is an actual
child in our Royal Palms orphanage in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Isn't that a beautiful child? A beautiful
child who, by the way, isn't even Haitian. In Grant's services, associate pastor Ross
Collette tells how Grant supports thirty-five hundred children, sixty-four orphanages in
Haiti. Brother Grant has sixty-four or more orphanages in Haiti. Collette practically
moves people to tears with his story of the saintly woman who runs one of Grant's orphanages,
a woman they call Mommy. Her name is Susan Whippett, but we call her Mommy. Well, she
was seventy-some years old the last time she confessed to any AIDS at all. But we wondered
how Mommy could have made that confession. This is Arcachon, Haiti, and this is Mommy's
grave. She's been dead for five years. The orphanage still exists, full of children who
do need money, food and clothes. But how much does Grant give? Two of the doctors who now
run the orphanage told us Grant doesn't give them a dime. So you get no money from Reverend
Grant. He doesn't come here? No. He does nothing for your children. But you're really saying
Reverend Grant is a fraud. Do we? Yes. But what about those sixty-four other orphanages
Grant claims in Haiti, those thirty-five hundred children, or the full-time American missionary
he claims there, Brother Bob Jones? I've got seventeen that live here. Meet Brother Bob
Jones. He didn't know we were filming with hidden cameras. We told him we worked for
people trying to start a new TV ministry in the States. Jones quickly confirmed he doesn't
oversee any sixty-four orphanages, just one for seventeen children whom he does seem to
love and care for. This is my little boy. This is T-Boot. Jones told us Grant does send
a couple of thousand dollars a month to Haiti, but that Grant is just one of the evangelists
claiming Jones' orphanage, and said if we liked, we could claim it too. In Dallas, fix
you up a sign on a canvas, roll it out, welcome to Haiti, put your name on there, whatever
you want. Then we take these kids, them stand out here and string the sign out in front
of them, then you're down at the back of the sign with a couple of kids on either side
of you. And let's say we planned to use the kids to raise a lot of money, but wanted to
keep ninety-five percent of it for ourselves. Jones would sign on. Let's say you sent me
twenty-five dollars per month for each one of my children. And then you turn around and
you raise five hundred dollars for each child for that month. The thing of it is, the way
I look at it is, the twenty-five is the twenty-five I wouldn't have gotten otherwise. And if you
didn't raise it, I wouldn't get it. So I'm happy with that. I just want a little piece
of it. But the law says you can't mislead people about the money you raise and where
it goes. It's the kind of thing that put Jim Baker in jail. Jim Baker, he wouldn't have
gotten into it if he hadn't handled it right. But he didn't, you know, he didn't handle
it right. Jones told us the way to handle it is send him all the money we raise and
he'd find a way to send back to us what we agree on, a kind of laundering scheme. Now
when you send it to me, how do I avoid the IRS on that? You send it to me back as what?
I just put a refund to help cover cost and expenses. And finally, Jones offered another
service. He'll provide those heart-tugging photographs Evangelus used to make viewers
think they alone are getting to sponsor an individual child. Everybody wants a real poor,
the skinnier the child is, and then hopefully you make him cry when you take his picture.
I'll be a little bit. We're told Grant would have as many as 50 sponsors for one photograph.
So we ask how much he'd get for Haiti in a month. And we were told in one month, for
example, $350,000 in a month, when in fact he was only sending down to 4000. Since Grant
had refused an interview, we tried to see him after a service. I'd like to ask you some
things about your missions, Haiti particularly. Grant refused to give us any answers and called
out for his lawyer who denounced us, while Grant's wife tried to block the camera lens.
It's not of God. If it was, you'd tell us what it was about. I can tell you what the
questions are going to be about. No, no, there'll be no questions tonight. After our broadcast,
W. V. Grant lost some of his faith-healing followers, but he's still on the air and planning
forays around the country. Also, by the way, we learned Grant has purchased a newer Mercedes
and that he has another home in Breckenridge, Colorado, a five-story ski resort he rents
out for as much as $600 a night. When we return, I just fell in love with everybody. He's the
hottest minister on TV, Robert Tilton and his amazing money machine. But first, Larry
Lee, a preacher who told viewers he lost his home and all his possessions in a devastating
fire. I don't think he has mansions because he's going to have his mansion in heaven.
We'll take a look at heaven on earth, Lee's other home, the lakeside estate that followers
weren't told about when prime time continues. What you're about to see now is very different
from our first report. As you'll recall, we had heard that Larry Lee had a sophisticated
ministry, and we'd heard that some of his multi-million dollar fundraising was built
on careful omissions, careful misrepresentations. Well, it certainly does cost a lot for Lee
to run his TV ministry with the high cost of airtime and overhead. Our question was,
what kind of appeals get the followers to send in money? And how truthful is Larry Lee
while he's on TV? That the spirit of destruction cannot destroy your life or your family or
your property. Larry Lee's followers say he's the next Billy Graham. Two years ago, he was
tapped as the keynote speaker at the National Religious Broadcasters Convention, another
sign he's a star on the horizon. Well, I want to say to you, my good brother, my dear sister,
I understand that pain. Lee built up an 11,000 member congregation and a $15 million gold
glass church outside Dallas. But in 1990, he left the church to concentrate solely on
his TV ministry, where he raised money preaching that prayers would be answered through donations
to God. He calls it sowing the seed. The best time to sow is when you're hit. And with the
aid of a courageous local pastor, Larry Lee is building the first spirit filled church
in Auschwitz since the end of World War Two. One of Lee's big fundraising campaigns was
an emotional appeal for the church Lee said he was building at the site of the Nazi horror.
Well, in Auschwitz, we're going there to build a physical church as well as instruct the
pastors. For six weeks, Lee's phone lines lit up taking donations for the cause. If
you would like to make a donation using your visa or MasterCard, touch one. What Lee didn't
know was that we had followed him undercover when he went to Poland. It turns out the church
at Auschwitz isn't Larry Lee's church at all. No, no, Lee only spent about an hour at the
church, looked around, nothing else. The church treasury secretary told us it was started
two years ago by the Polish Pentecostal community with money raised entirely on their own. Until
now, we did not leave a penny here. And the church that right now we're building in Auschwitz,
Poland, you gave the clear impression on the air that you were going over to build this
church. In fact, this church had been underway for two years before you ever your name even
came up in it. That's right. But before he left Poland, Lee finally did give the church
a small one time donation of $30,000. The head of the church told us Lee said that was
all he could give. Though compared to what the Lee ministry takes in every year, $30,000
is pocket change. Well, we also, Diane, when we talked about the fact that we were raising
money for the Poland crusade, we talked about the fact that we were bringing the pastors
and their wives. And how much did that cost? I don't know to the, I don't know exactly.
We do cost $12,000. So that's a total of $42,000 when you were taking in how much as part of
this campaign. Yeah, I'm not clear. I'm not sure exactly the numbers because we have copies.
So we told Lee we obtained some of his bank records, which show that the amount he gave
in Poland was indeed way less than his ministry often takes in in a day. You can see here
the Larry Lee ministry took in more than a million dollars in one month, day after day.
You're taking an enormous amounts of money. You're taking it $111,000. That's one day,
17,000, 26,000, 45,000, 125,000 one day. Do you think the people who send in money for
this church knew that you were going to give this church a tiny fraction of what you make
in one day? You know, Diane, we are, you mentioned the national religious broadcasters earlier.
We have the Efficom seal, which is their ethics and financial integrity commission. When we
applied for this, we submitted, we submitted all of how we raise finances, where the money
goes, how it goes. We have an audit every year on everything that we do. Can we see
it? Sure. But even after repeated requests, Lee never sent us the audit or figures on
donations to Poland. His spokesman told us he couldn't say whether more money came in
for Poland than Lee donated because the money all went into one general fund and how Larry
Lee applied them to his own life after fire destroyed his family's home. But what about
another of Larry Lee's fundraising ploys, a series of tapes that Lee promoted for donations,
which contained spiritual lessons he learned when calamity struck him last summer for a
sacrificial investment of $30 or more to the prayer ministry. Throughout the summer last
year, Larry Lee told viewers he'd lost everything he had because his Tulsa house had burned
to the ground. We've had plenty to wear. Praise God. They ain't much, but what we've got,
it's on us. We lost our furniture and we lost our home and we lost most of our clothes.
Everything you had? Yeah. Well, not quite everything. A Tulsa house burned all right,
an insured house Lee had been trying to sell for two years without luck. Lee says he had
just moved his things into it before the fire. But Lee didn't lose this house. It's the 5.1
acre estate outside Dallas where he lived for six years. And Lee didn't tell his viewers
about this. You knew what you were doing? No, ma'am. You knew the impression you were creating.
Do you think people knew that you were not destitute, homeless, wiped out? We moved with
all of our furniture and everything we had last June. So what was Lee saying? That there
was nothing left in that house in Dallas? We were told that you have a lot still there.
No, there's nothing there. Nothing? Take a look at these photographs taken two days after
our interview with Lee. The Dallas house filled with furniture, books, family photos. Lee's
maid and the nanny were still working there. And not only that, we learned one month after
the Tulsa house burned, Larry Lee's ministry bought him another house there. A third house
paid for in cash. My little girl, she said, Daddy, you don't have to get me a car because
we probably don't have enough money. Let me tell you something. God's people will always
have enough money if when they're hit by the devil, they sow the biggest seed they can.
Immediately after our show aired, the National Religious Broadcasters announced that Lee
was not in compliance with its EFECOM standards. And Lee announced that he was taking himself
off TV and wanted to clear his name. Well, the NRB reviewed Lee's records and issued
its findings last March. The findings say that from now on, the money Larry Lee raises
from Poland will be put into a separate account. And so the NRB has given Lee its approval
once again. And last May, Larry Lee went back on the air.
Still ahead. Oh, God, in the name of Jesus, we believe
in prayer. We believe in miracles. One of the most popular televangelists in
the business, Robert Tilton. Eight months later, are his followers getting the full
story? When prime time continues after this from our ABC stations.
You are now going to meet a man who we calculated last year took in more money than the income
of Madonna and Michael Jackson combined. As we said before, it takes a lot of money to
keep one of those TV ministries on the air. But we've been told that making money and
marketing are what this man does best. Insiders told us his organization is the state of the
art factory for donations, all for the operations and bank accounts of the Robert Tilton ministry.
And I'll tell you something else. Those that mess with me, they're messing with the apple
of God's eye. This is Robert Tilton. He had the fastest
growing ministry on television last year. You foul rotten, stinking devil. I'm going
to beat you up, you devil. I'm going to cut you to pieces in the name of Jesus.
His ears are riveted by his melodrama, his quirky style.
I love you. And he parlays all of it into a high tech
church in Dallas and more air time than almost any other televangelist.
I'll say yes, Lord. Tilton takes in so much money, he makes other
TV ministers look like amateurs. And I want you to make a thousand dollar
value face. Oh, I know you probably don't have a thousand dollars, but valid.
Try to find out how much money Tilton makes and you discover the ministry is shrouded
in secrecy. The pastor has bodyguards. His offices are sealed off with armed security
and surveillance cameras. But prime time obtained some of Tilton's financial
documents. These are daily deposits. And based on these, Tilton's followers sent
his ministry conservatively 80 million dollars a year, tax free.
Good morning and welcome to Word of Faith Family Church.
Tilton's televised service is an expensive multimedia variety hour.
But for all his flashy style, Tilton insists he's still a simple preacher who cares about
the sickness and suffering of his followers. So we decided to take hidden cameras to see
what we could learn about Robert Tilton's fundraising. It led us first to the nerve
center of his ministry, the company that organizes his direct mail. It's called Response Media.
Jim Moore is president of Response Media. He handles not only Tilton, but a number of
big corporate accounts. We told Moore that we were media consultants
for this man, Dallas Minister Oli Anthony. We asked him to show us how to start a big
money ministry like Tilton's. We learned that once people give you their
names it's easy to keep them on the hook. You mail them something with a gimmick in
it. First of all, when you send an item in it,
it gets your attention. That's number one. Tilton sends out an avalanche of things he
asks viewers to send back to him. Miracle prayer clause. He promises to touch and place
upon an altar. Chords he says he'll place on a wall of deliverance. Arrows he'll use
to take aim at a sufferer's needs. A tracing. Place your hand there and he'll put his hand
there too. There's holy water from the River Jordan. Miracle anointing oil. Though Moore
said some of the items come from that holy place, Taiwan.
The letters accompanying the items are written by ghost writers to pressure followers to
write back and make donations too. Does it work? People send them in by the truckloads.
It's a great marketing scheme. There's a feeling of obligation to send it back. And they do.
And usually they're going to send it back, oh, I'll go ahead and put five dollars in.
I'm not sure exactly all the reasons why it works, but I can tell you from years and years
of experience, it does. And when the letters arrive, they're processed
so the company knows which fundraising appeals you can use to squeeze followers for the most
donations. We take the client's files and we run them
up against demographic information and create a profile of who their people are. How many
people have cars that are new? So it's market research, not God, who can
tell Tilton which appeals reach the richest donors, which illnesses create the most dollar
opportunities. Someone had a growth. I just saw a growth being
healed. And Tilton creates the impression that after
he pays for his overhead and all that expensive air time, the money goes to good works like
these, his missions around the world. But we track down five of Tilton's so-called
missions and we calculate he spends more in a year on billboards around Dallas than he
does on these five missions combined. And what about this mission, Tilton's orphanage
in Haiti? Well, remember Bob Jones, who told us for just a few thousand a month we could
put up a sign and claim an entire orphanage, even if we weren't the only contributor.
So even though his magazine calls it the Robert Tilton Ministries Children's Home, it's really
not Tilton's place at all, which is why government officials we spoke to in Haiti hadn't heard
of Tilton or his orphanage. So nothing from Robert Tilton here.
And Tilton's marketing director made it clear when it comes to money for missions, Tilton
is very smart. He's careful not to say what donation goes where so he can avoid, again,
how Jim and Tammy got caught. They could have taken as much money as they
wanted to and never gotten in trouble. Yeah. See, that's why.
So you advise clients to sort of keep it nonspecific? Well, if you can raise it being nonspecific,
I always recommend that. See, isn't him, Tilton does that, but he's
never raised money for a specific project. I tell you, you never heard a TV preacher
asking for money like this before. Robert Tilton, as I knew him, was practicing
to become a salesman. That was his concept of success.
This man who wanted anonymity is just one of several old friends of Robert Tilton who
talked to us. He remembers when they were in college, they
would use drugs or get drunk and go off to tent revivals as a kind of sport.
And we'd be drunk and go down front, fall to our knees, speak in tongues.
Tilton and his friends started developing parodies, so-called Jesus wraps of their own.
Oh, dear God, come into this young woman's life, hell tonight. She has a need to find
Christ. Oh, God, in the name of Jesus, we believe
in prayer. We believe in miracles. I personally thought I was a lot better at
it than he was. Tilton, who never finished college, admits
he was a drug user, but says he was saved when some people came to his house and explained
Christ. I just changed. I just fell in love with everybody.
But he never tells followers how he and his friends talked about running preacher scams
and cashing in. We said that when we graduated that we would
buy a good tent, a dynamite sound system, a good amen section, and fly around the country
and get rich. We sold everything that we had by an old ragged
tent and a big old truck and a travel trailer, and we headed out to tell people about this
gospel of Jesus. That was 1974 when Tilton started out, and
by 1981, he had hit the big time. How? Primetime has learned that for several years, Tilton
courted a man news accounts have tied to organized crime and drug smuggling. Herman Beebe, a
financier whose banks gave Tilton a $1.3 million loan, though Tilton claims he never met the
person. And after Tilton got the money, he got a new
image too. A permanent wave for his hair, plastic surgery, and like his good buddy Jim
Baker, a talent for tears on demand. He said I was washing my face this morning,
all the cancer fell off. And we were there one day with hidden camera
when he made it clear the tears of his followers are good for the TV pitch too.
But I'm thinking some of these people crying over the one, the emotion, the crying and
then over the running and then the crowd shots and all that going on.
I thought I was coming there to really help people and to minister to their needs.
Bill Hardy left the Tilton ministry after two years as a telephone prayer minister,
taking calls from desperate followers. Hardy showed us the phone scripts, which directed
ministers to get a minimum vow of $100 from each caller.
We truly became the McDonald's of ministry. We were selling our ministry for money.
Lord spoke to me and said, Bob, I'm sending you to people who have nothing.
And his followers believe what Tilton says about himself in the ministry magazine, that
he only gets a salary set by an independent firm and one perk, a parsonage.
Could this have been the parsonage and swank Rancho Santa Fe, California, a multimillion
dollar Lakeview home with pool, jacuzzis, thousands of dollars in furnishings, a four
car garage for Tilton's Mercedes. It's now been sold, but though the title was
in the name of Tilton's lawyer, Tilton lived here for more than two years.
The house was paid for in cash. Or is this the parsonage in Fort Lauderdale,
Florida, where Tilton bought a $132,000 boat?
This time he put the house in the name of a holding company, allegedly for security.
But according to bank documents, it's Tilton who owns it.
And Tilton's ministry built him yet another home in Las Calinas, Texas, while renting
him a fourth home till it was finished for $6,000 a month.
And take a look at this. Prime Time obtained a document which shows that although the ministry
is a corporation, Tilton personally has access to all its wealth, almost as if it were a
sole proprietorship. In his personal loan application, Tilton's bank says he has
one and a half million dollars in cash and CDs. He has access to $14 million in
treasury bills and real estate bought at a cost of $40 million.
That's in all $60 million in assets available to Tilton, and those are the ones he puts on the list.
There's only his board to hold him accountable. So who's on the board?
Tilton, his secretary, and his wife.
God gave me this truth. He didn't send me to the rich, fat cats that think they got it made and don't need God or preachers.
He sent me to people that are beat up, that are hurting.
But how much does Tilton really care about the beat up and the hurting?
We kept thinking about something the head of the direct mail operation told us, that the mail doesn't go to Tilton.
It's forwarded unopened to Tilton's bank in Tulsa.
So the bank opens the followers mail, not to share the agony, but to get the money.
The bank opens the letters that come back in.
And takes your money and puts it in your account. All we get is the paper document and how much the person gave.
And those items that people have prayed over and sent in believing Robert Tilton would touch them and pray over them too.
Well, if some made it to Tilton, there are thousands that didn't.
We found them in the garbage at the bank and the marketing research center.
The angels of God, the prayer cords, the arrows.
This person wanted his aimed at getting a real dad.
The tracing where Tilton said he'd place his hand ripped up by letter processors.
We found heartbreaking appeals from followers and letters like this one.
It came with personal photographs for Pastor Bob and a prayerful message.
It also came with a $7,000 pledge.
The money probably made it to Tilton. The prayers went in the trash.
And in a moment, new information on Robert Tilton.
We'll tell you what's happened to him since our report first aired.
So what happened after our report and after Robert Tilton took to the airways to denounce us?
I might look stupid, but I ain't stupid.
The day after our report, Tilton flatly denied that prayer requests are thrown away before he sees them.
He said the ones in our piece had been stolen and made to look like trash.
Cheap shot, totally yellow journalism. I mean.
In fact, Tilton insisted he had prayed over so many letters that made him sick.
Those prayer request forms have ink on them and all kinds of chemicals.
I laid on top of those prayer requests so much that the chemicals actually got into my bloodstream,
began to swell my capillaries and I had two small strokes in my brain that brought about some numbness in my body.
He said that's what forced him to get that plastic surgery.
Yeah, I had my eyes worked on to try to get the serious bags out from under my eyes and how all those chemicals had messed them up.
And Tilton said he bought the mansion in California and the retreat in Florida and the big boat
because after all the praying, he needed some rest.
So what? I never preach poverty to you.
I said God would provide you with the best.
I'm not supposed to. I can tell you you can have the best, but I ain't supposed to have nothing.
Get that religious garbage out of your brain.
So this is what Tilton was saying last November.
I lay my hands personally on every prayer request that comes in into the phone center or comes in through the mail.
But four months later, here is Tilton in a videotaped deposition with the Texas Attorney General's office,
which they recently released to the press over Tilton's objection.
In it, Tilton admits he doesn't really pray over every prayer request at all.
Not all of them are the original prayer requests.
Some are on a computer printout with their specific kind of prayer that they want me to pray.
So I don't get the actual document of some of them.
And what happens to the actual document?
So what?
And in her deposition, Tilton's wife acknowledged that Tilton's so-called personal letters were not handwritten by him.
Is the handwriting on the mail pieces actually Mr. Tilton's handwriting?
No, it is not.
Is it part of a graphics program that you have?
It's one of the artists.
And who answers these letters asking for spiritual guidance, advice, miracles?
Not Tilton nor his prayer ministers, but people hired by that data processing center in Tulsa.
And does Word of Faith specify what kind of training they'll receive?
No.
The orphanage in Haiti, the people's names on there that run the orphanage to support it, if the idiots would just read it.
Also, after our broadcast, Tilton attacked us for what we said about his missions.
The ones he implies are his own.
Like this one.
Here's how he promotes it on his TV show.
Wings of Mercy, a center sponsored by Robert Tilton Ministries.
The promotion makes you think this is Tilton's center.
But listen to his deposition.
Know what Wings of Mercy is?
Not really.
No wonder, since primetime has learned that Tilton's contribution to that mission is just $300 a month.
And what about something else Tilton said in his deposition?
He claims that his contribution to his mission in Guatemala is 100% of their needs.
You were going to provide 100% of the support that they needed to maintain their operation.
So we checked this out.
We spoke to the on-site missionary in Guatemala, who told us in fact, Tilton is only a partial sponsor.
And the Guatemalan government has gone public to say that Tilton and his promotional material
exaggerate his contribution for personal gain, including his claim of a special invitation.
I've been invited to be in the inauguration, the ball, all the celebrations.
That's not true, according to the president's spokesman, Fernando Muniz.
No, that the president has invited him to attend the inauguration is by all means false.
Nor does he have any relation with the government.
But we cannot take action against a swindler of this caliber.
We are going to take this good news of Jesus Christ around the world.
You get to help make it happen.
Through your ties and offerings.
And something else about Tilton the missionary.
Repeatedly, he tells his viewers that their donations enable him to win souls around the world.
And we totally, word of faith ministries, you the family church, underwrites totally this particular evangelism unit.
Tilton tells followers they finance crusades in countries too poor to pay themselves.
He's come all the way from America.
So Prime Time decided to follow Robert Tilton to India this past March.
Do you want to please God tonight?
Well, there was Tilton passing the collection plates nightly.
If each of these people gave just a few pennies, Tilton would get back hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Money taken from the people he himself calls the poorest people on earth.
Tilton said, please donate money, please donate money.
So everybody got disappointed.
And then everybody whispered, this is not a crusade.
It's a business.
And before we leave you, we wanted you to meet two people who decided recently to speak out to confirm Robert Tilton is not the devoted minister, he claims.
I never saw him visiting the sick.
I never saw him counseling.
I never saw him with anybody from the congregation.
Connie Cohen was the Tilton's personal secretary in the early 80s.
She and her husband were so devoted, they donated thirty thousand dollars to the church.
She says she started out in awe of Tilton until she saw the real man up close.
She says Tilton had a library filled with get rich quick books, which he even used for his sermons, though he told her not to tell.
I saw some of the sermons and some of the quotes from the books.
It's like he takes some of the things out of the books, incorporates them into the sermons and uses it as the word of God.
Hey, I'm quoting to you what God said.
They had a swimming pool put in, spent lots and lots of money.
Brenda Reynolds also saw Tilton at home.
She took care of his children for six years and was head of housekeeping at the ministry for two more.
She says Mrs. Tilton ran things at home and the ministry and the two of them lived like royalty.
Oh, yes, he had diamonds and furs and I think every pair of shoes she had cost at least a hundred bucks and she had about 150 pair.
Him saying thing and Brenda Reynolds also saw something else.
She says the ministry sent over boxes and boxes of prayer requests to Tilton's home for him to look at and pray over.
But she says he didn't want them in the house.
He had told me to just put him in the garage when they bring him out.
Did you ever try to bring him in the house?
Well, like I said, I did one time.
What happened?
And from then on, well, he just told me to just put him in the garage and he stayed in the garage and they stacked up and stacked up.
And I told him, I said, well, those are the things that you're supposed to be praying over, you know.
And he told me, he said, well, just take them to the trash, throw them away.
I laid on top of those prayer requests so much that the chemicals actually got into my bloodstream.
I know for a fact that he did not pray over them and that I took them to the trash myself.
And I would look at her and I would remember thinking to myself, what if these people only knew, you know, what they were doing?
He has got to know inside that he's a phony, that he's taken people.
I think he has become cynical.
And Connie Cohn, a devout Christian, is speaking out because she wants to urge people to follow the Bible, not, she says, false prophets like Robert Tilton.
I just want everybody to know that Bob Tilton is not the only kind of Christian in this world.
What he holds up as Christianity is totally false and totally opposite of what the Bible says.
A special thanks now to Robbie Gordon and associate producer Kelly Southerland and the others on our investigative team.
And a final word of thanks to that Dallas minister you saw, Oli Anthony of the Trinity Foundation, who helped us gain access to key parts of this investigation.
His ministry is involved with the homeless and the local community, and he is a fierce critic of Big Bunny TV preachers.
But before we leave, we'll sit with him for a moment to ask him about followers, the faith and search for a congregation.
The belonging of a man's heart is for a community, for a sense of being able to lay down his life for something important.
That can't happen with a television tube.
But there are people who come forward and say, I got a miracle because of what the money I gave, because I watched.
I did get a miracle.
Did you ever see the Wizard of Oz?
Dorothy got her heart's desire.
The Tin Man received his heart's desire.
The lion received his heart's desire and the straw man received his heart's desire, even though the wizard was a charlatan.
Why? Because the god of the universe was already resident within them.
He just had to be let out.
So what do you say to the person sitting at home watching?
Let's open your eyes and look at the need around you, give to that need instead of some faraway evangelist that's talking you into playing a heavenly lottery or a heavenly slot machine.
And they'll get those miracles?
They'll get all the miracles that are promised.
They'll get a hundredfold blessing returned onto them.
You should know we called Robert Tilton last week and his attorney refused our request for an on-camera interview.
A few other things. Robert Tilton is being sued by nine people, former followers or families of followers seeking at least two hundred and fifty million dollars for fraud.
He is countersued.
Our original report triggered investigations by the FBI, the IRS, the Postal Service and the Texas Attorney General's Office.
Tilton first said that he'd be open with his records, but then he got a restraining order to keep the Texas Attorney General's Office from obtaining his records.
However, the Attorney General says he'll continue his investigation.
And finally, in a deposition to the Attorney General's Office, Tilton said that since the investigations began and since our broadcast, his donations are down by as much as one third.
For transcript of this program, please send five dollars to 1535 Grand Street, Denver, Colorado, 802-03.
Prime time is a presentation of ABC News.
More Americans get their news from ABC News than from any other source.
America's watching ABC.
As you have just seen from the stories of Tilton, Grant and Larry Lee, the truth behind the mousetrap industry and fundraising appeals is one of deceit and corruption.
W.V. Grant, during the time this program was being produced, was still in jail due for release in late 1997.
Tilton is still in business, though off the air and currently trying to come back on the air, and is at the moment divorcing his second wife.
Larry Lee is also still in business.
More disturbing is a number of UK churches that still support these ministries and promote their literature.
As you can see from these clips, church after church that we went to, stock their shelves to overflowing with books written by these corrupt and immoral leaders.
Some of them have their own offices here in the UK, and through their influence we are seeing UK churches adopt similar methods of fundraising.
Can anyone using the same methods be any better?
From what we have seen so far, there appears to be little difference.
The methods and the message are the same. Only the faces change.
Look at these circulars from Maurice Sorello.
The first one shows Sorello, Hinn and R.W. Schambach portraying themselves as God's prophets whom we must obey.
Of course, receiving from God's prophet usually involves a donation.
And we have already seen the damage sustained by some who follow the words of Prophet Benny Hinn in the first Signs and Wonders video.
The number of faithful followers who have lost their lives as a result of believing the healing heresies of Maurice Sorello is also well documented.
How do you know that your leg is healed?
Because I can jump. I can jump. You can, I can jump.
Let me see you jump.
I said by those stripes we are healed!
Go on, put your hand in them!
By those stripes you're healed! You're healed! You're healed! You're healed!
Run, run, run! Run with me!
Do you feel any pain in your legs?
No!
No pain at all?
No!
Just run just a little bit with me. Come on, run just a little bit with me.
Oh yes!
Put your hand up.
Cancer in the bones?
She has cancer in the blood and the bones. It's all over.
Cancer in the blood and in the bones.
I want you to just raise your hand and say, Father, I thank you for the healing of the cancer of the bones.
Go on, give him praise. Go on, darling. Go on.
Get her back to the doctor right away and in the next day or two you come and tell us what they tell you as they verify the healing.
In all the years that we have observed Sorrello's ministry, we have never once seen a mail shop that did not ask for money.
And he uses every possible technique to solicit your funds, from prayer cloths to promises of revival, special seminars and emotional appeals.
This one even shows a letter allegedly sent from Morris to his wife, Teresa, whilst he was in Poland.
It is a complete fabrication written solely for his mail shop audience.
Other mail shops, as you can see, from John Avanzini, Creflo Dollar, Benny Hearn and countless others, always contain an appeal for funds.
Why is God not supernaturally providing for these ministries like he did for Elijah?
Could it be they are not from God?
It would seem that thousands are feeding them rather than them feeding thousands as Jesus did.
From the video you have already seen, you can see where the money comes from to pay for bodyguards, million dollar homes and expensive cars.
From money given for the work of the Gospel.
Many other projects are also supported by ministry donations.
In 1986 a lady died as a result of attending a Benny Hearn crusade.
In an out of court settlement with her family, he paid a seven figure sum.
He also regularly spends hundreds of thousands of dollars on first class flights for him and his entourage.
Expenses which are paid for by money that should be for Gospel missions.
Money sent in by Christians who believe they are helping him to reach the lost.
Just like Tilton, Grant, Larry Lee and many others like them.
Benny Hearn and his World Outreach Centre are currently defending a 25 million dollar lawsuit for civil rights violations against Christians who are protesting outside his church.
Officers from his local sheriff's department were being illegally paid by Hearn to act as armed bodyguards at his church and crusades.
When people send money to Benny Hearn, is it for him to preach the Gospel or to illegally pay his local police force to be his personal bodyguards?
Protecting him from dangerous protesters armed with paper tracks.
Do Christians send their money to preachers with the intention of buying their Mercedes, Porsche's and opulent homes or to do the work of the Lord Jesus Christ?
It would seem that the Christian world is never going to learn from the mistakes of Jim Backer and Jimmy Swaggart.
We keep putting new superstars in the same position whilst expecting a different result.
Unfortunately, the results will always be the same because money and power corrupts.
Before the age of radio, television and mass mailing, real men of God like George Mueller preached the Gospel to millions,
cared for thousands of orphaned children, supported hundreds of missionaries worldwide and all without ever telling a soul about his financial needs.
What a contrast to the anointed ministries of today.
The real men of God can do that.
The wolves will twist Scripture and justify what they do to get your money.
Many of these so-called leaders make loud and long complaints about watchmen being bloodhounds or heresy hunters,
but they never address the issues and they will never debate publicly.
Instead, they quote Matthew 18 out of context so they can parley in private and keep their deception secret.
The Apostle Paul, however, confronted Peter to his face before all,
and his warnings of false brethren were epistles written for the whole Church to read.
Today's leaders hide behind their secretaries and busy schedules.
Are they more important than the Apostle Peter or are they simply too scared to face the facts in public?
Before we close, remember the mail shop factory run by Jim Moore in the Robert Tilton Exposé?
The company was called Response Media.
Although since the Tilton Exposé, Jim Moore has relocated and is trading as Global Direct,
and he being only one of at least five organizations in America like this,
serving the greed of televangelists and the needs of secular companies.
Looking through the unedited footage of the undercover film,
I couldn't help but be amazed at the scale of the operation designed solely to get money out of people.
You may be interested to know who else also used Jim's money-making services.
The following are just some of many who are using his company.
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