The Multimillion-Dollar Collection Plate: Is It Fraud?

The “prosperity gospel:" It’s a controversial movement among some charismatic Christians who believe that if people have faith, God will reward them with health and riches. In the middle of the last century, some prosperity gospel preachers discovered the power of television to help them reach more believers — and more donors. Televangelists like Kenneth Copeland became multimillionaires, while many of their donors live well below the poverty line.

Is it fraud if people believe wholeheartedly and donate willingly? Let's ask our guest, Pete Evans. He leads the Trinity Foundation, an organization that has spent decades investigating televangelists who spend their congregations’ donations on lavish mansions and private jets. 

Since its founding in the 1970s, the Trinity Foundation has been part faith community, part homeless shelter, part televangelism watchdog and investigative firm. In this episode, you'll find out how Evans and the Trinity Foundation expose religious fraud and excess, using investigative techniques like real estate public records research, aircraft tracking, and trash pulls.

The Trinity Foundation website: https://trinityfi.org/

Host: Hal Humphreys 

Guest: Pete Evans

Sponsored by: TLOxp®

Music provided by Jason White, who composed our theme.

Special thanks to Kim Green, who produced this episode.

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Pursuit Magazine and PI Education are part of StoryboardEMP, a media and education company in Nashville, TN. Pursuit, a free online magazine for private investigators, explores all things investigative, from gumshoe techniques and surveillance tech to industry news and crime in media. PI Education, its sister brand, provides online continuing education for licensed PIs. Pursuit and PIed are owned and edited by husband-wife team Hal Humphreys, a PI, and Kim Green, a writer and radio producer.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:03

The prosperity gospel. It's a controversial movement among some charismatic Christians who believe that if people have faith, God will reward them with health and riches. In the middle of the last century, some prosperity gospel preachers discovered the power of television to help them reach more believers and more donors. Televangelists like Joel Osteen and Kenneth Copeland became multimillionaires, while many of their donors live well below the poverty line. Isn't it fraud if people believe wholeheartedly and donate willingly? Let's ask my guest. He leads an organization that has spent decades investigating televangelisms who's been their congregation's donations of lavish mansions or private chests. Since its founding in the 1970s, the Trinity Foundation has been a part faith community, part homeless shelter, part televangelism watchdog and investigate firm. When we come back, we'll talk about how my guest and the Trinity Foundation expose religious fraud and excess with the help of media analysts like CNN and Inside Edition. Stick around.

SPEAKER_00 1:17

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SPEAKER_01 1:52

Welcome back, everyone. My guest is Pete Evans. He started investigating televangelists in the early 1990s, has worked undercover inside religious cults, and has reported to the U.S. Senate Finance Committee on Misuse of Donor Funds by six TV ministries in 2021. He became president of the Trinity Foundation. Let me bring Pete in real quick. Pete, thank you for being here. Welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_02 2:20

Hi, Hal. Good to uh actually uh uh meet you in person a little bit, you know, or by video anyway, beyond beyond the classroom setting.

SPEAKER_01 2:32

Yeah, no doubt. It's very good to see you uh here in this setting. I I'm I'm always intrigued by people who take investigative skills and do something interesting with them. Um as you know, a lot of us uh in in the PI world, um myself included, occasionally work surveillance on domestic cases and those kind of things. Um sometimes that work can feel a little bit less than uh truly meaningful. Um you know, Pete, you and I have spoken on a couple of occasions. You know that I'm a criminal defense investigator. I find great purpose in that work. Um but uh the work you do I find really, really interesting. And I want to I want to kind of set this up. So in the host intro, I talked about um the prosperity doctrine, um and and and kind of a little bit about televangelists and and what that world looks like. But would you give us cons more context? What is prosperity theology and how did televangelists come to adopt it?

SPEAKER_02 3:36

All right, well, it was uh it's a give to get theology that that uh really is a perversion of the scriptures of the uh of the Bible, that uh if you give to God, God is gonna bless you. Health, wealth, uh your mortgage payment or whatever. That uh and so people uh uh have taken a particular parable in the Bible that talks about the sower and the seed, which is about the seed of Christ in believers, and really in really in the human race, that uh and it and turned it into money. And uh I would hate to be in their shoes on judgment day, so for changing the seed of Christ to being money, you know, it's just crazy. But that's uh so they use this concept called seed faith that was uh everybody thinks it was developed by uh by oral oral roberts. Let me see if I can put it on the screen, yeah. But the but the problem with the uh that is that Oral borrowed it from a guy that that uh developed some mail campaigns for him called Gene Ewing. And uh Gene was uh uh he was an old serviceman that uh after he got out of service, he was a tent revivalist. And uh he copied a lot of what Orrell did, uh, maybe not to the same successful degree, but uh he would have these dead raising ceremonies where he would have his employees walk in with a casket into a stadium, and then and then on a and then at the sound of a trumpet blowing, uh this this woman dressed in uh raggedy white, you know, as if she's raising from the dead, would rise out of the casket. It was it's crazy. Um we uh that was published in the uh Washington Post and the LA Times. So uh but he he developed this sea faith theology for Oral Roberts, and and many older people uh maybe perhaps including yourself would remember that he had this uh uh he saw this 900-foot Jesus at one point and uh uh in the night early 90s. That was that was a campaign developed by Gene Ewing. And so they had a and and uh he developed Gene Ewing developed this concept that if you plant your seed, if your seed is is money, you plant your seed in this ministry, then God is gonna bless you. And so he's used that and he and Gene Ewing still at 97 still sends out these prayer rugs that you can put in the middle of your uh of your living room and kneel on it, and God is gonna bless you. Of course, if you if you as long as you uh send in your your seed to the uh you know to his ministry. So that's a little bit about how uh seed faith and the prosperity gospel is not as pronounced in some. I would say uh people like uh Joel Osteen, uh it would be uh more of a uh uh success in life kind of a uh theology rather than than seat faith. And uh, but people like Kenneth Copeland, Jesse DePlantis, others, you know, that that's uh that's more of uh of uh anyway. Um uh I don't want to step on on your questions, but no, no, no.

SPEAKER_01 7:33

I'm I'm I'm utterly fascinated by this. And you you mentioned I may remember the 900-foot Jesus. I remember sitting in my grandmother's um TV room as a child and watching her stroke out checks to send to televangelists. Um she felt like it was it was a really good thing.

SPEAKER_02 7:52

The same thing happened to me when my grandmother sent uh checks to Robert Schuler to build a Crystal Cathedral in California, and she lived in New Jersey. So anyway.

SPEAKER_01 8:10

Watching my grandmother, you know, get kind of ensorciled by this TV preacher and and donate money. And she did this on a fairly regular basis. It wasn't a lot of money, but you know, you you get a a bunch of old elderly people around the country donating a little bit and it starts to add up. But is it fraud when people sincerely believe and donate money of their own free will?

SPEAKER_02 8:36

Well, that that's a great question. Uh so and and just as a slight disclaimer, uh when we claim to investigate religious fraud and excess, like excessive uh personal use of donor money, uh, though it may be legal, it's certainly not moral. It's it's we believe it to be immoral for people to be flying uh wasting donor money, flying in their private jets and living in mansions. But so fraud, uh but is it fraud for somebody who willingly gives money thinking they're giving to God? Um the from the the donor standpoint, I believe God will bless that person's donation. Uh but uh for the person behind the curtain, I'm using a wizard of oz kind of a uh analogy here. You know, the wizard of Oz is pulling the strings behind the behind everybody and and and with this great voice, as if it's the voice of God, and then uh and then uh Dorothy finds out that uh it's this little little uh man behind the curtain. And uh so it may not be legally fraud that uh what what these people are doing. Some some cases it really is, and we can get more into that later. Uh the law uses any any deceptive means uh uh to uh gain something of value from a person. And uh that uh that definition uh uh we believe that uh a whole lot of what we investigate is actually fraud, though it may not be fraud under the law. There was a case, uh Ballard case, this guy claimed to be uh God's representative on earth, and uh people were given a lot of money, and the case uh uh his fraud case uh seemed to be a slam dunk for prosecutors, but but the Supreme Court eventually reached the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court threw it out because these belief people believed they were giving to God in one way or another. And so it uh they looked at the intent of the donors and uh and and ignored the the fraud of the uh of the fraudster, and so uh that's been used over and over and over. And we wrote an article about that on our website this past week. Uh Barry uh my associate wrote that and uh it succinctly explains because there's a case going on now in the uh in federal court in California with uh a uh a man named Nason Joaquin Garcia that we investigated uh a little bit in in 2009 and 10 and wrote a report about that uh which uh we submitted to the IRS uh briefly. And it was uh um it that they had locations all over Texas and California and other all around the world. La Luz del Mundo, they're based in Guadalajara, Mexico, and this guy is in jail for 16 years. He landed, he landed in LA about I want to say five years ago, six years ago, and uh authorities met him and and took him took him right away after he got off of his private jet. And uh he uh he was found uh he finally to prevent the victims from having to testify in court, the prosecutors finally uh they settled with not, I mean, he he copped a guilty plea in exchange for for uh not going to court and uh and the 17 years. Nobody was happy with the verdict because you know this guy was he was abusing uh sexually abusing minors. And uh and this uh um and now FBI has gotten involved, and one of their lead witnesses talks about spiritual abuse, how she was required to submit to this same fellow. They're they're filing a different additional charges to try to keep this guy in jail for life, yeah. And uh the woman says she was spiritually manipulated into believing that God required her to submit to sex for this to this man for years, and so uh they are claiming the guy, they're using the Ballard case that I talked about a minute ago to try to get the FBI case thrown out. And of course, there it's not their only witness, but uh we're hoping that some kind of a precedent can be set, uh court precedent that will go against uh uh the previous uh uh court precedent that's been used for for years.

SPEAKER_01 14:01

So it's it's it it's interesting that you know we we uh uh we watch uh people, sometimes family members donate money to these people. Um and it is certainly uh galling to watch a televangelist uh you know get on uh a Gulf Stream you know uh 300 and and fly off to wherever it is they're flying off to. Um it is certainly galling to to uh to look at some televangelists as a mansion when the people that are donating are living on Fourteenth Avenue in Humboldt, Tennessee. Um but uh you know I I can also see this this is the case you keep referencing. Um I can see the argument that if someone uh that is in the giving position uh truly believes this thing, uh you know, uh I can say that. But the the problem is we end up dealing with uh cult-like uh situations, like this guy you're talking about in California, where it it seems to always go to child sexual abuse. Um or at least sexual abuse in in cult-like settings. There's always some kind of a sexual thing going on that is uh just horrible.

SPEAKER_02 15:23

Um but in yeah for just a moment, yeah. We uh for with people when we discover that there's misuse of donor funds, that there's excessive uh gratit self-gratification with donor funds, mansions, jets, bentleys, uh $10,000 suits, uh, and there seems to always be uh eventually, if not right away, uh people go begin to gratify themselves uh all the way, you know, sexually whatever. Sure. And so it's it's self-seeking gone wild, you know. Yeah, yeah. And it's a picture, we always used to say it's a picture uh of uh ourselves apart from the cross of Christ. Anyway, that that's that's the way we looked at it, so that we could actually uh somehow appreciate that Christ was preached, even though the preacher, the messenger was uh just uh a terrible representative.

SPEAKER_01 16:34

Sure, sure. I get that. Um I don't want to I want to be super careful to make a distinction here because uh we've talked about a couple of cases, we've specific cases where someone was um arrested and there's uh apparently some sexual abuse involved and that kind of business, and we've mentioned it a lot of times, especially in cult-like situations that self-gratification leads to sexual abuse and that kind of stuff. I want to be really careful not to make any accusations with this next question about sexual abuse. I'm really curious about the biggest players in this multimillion dollar faith industry. And and I want to focus on on the wealth part. How rich are they?

SPEAKER_02 17:18

That's a great question. Uh, a lot of people, there's a lot of uh we believe, guesses on the internet uh about people's wealth. They publish it. They uh seen one where uh um Kenneth Copeland is worth uh you know over a billion and uh one estimates 750 million. Uh I uh he's a big player, certainly not the biggest. There's the biggest would be in Brazil, a guy named Edir Macido, and I don't speak Portuguese, but I think it's Edir Macedo or something like that. But it uh he has his own bank, he has that's all over Brazil, that uh he has his own uh television network, he's got uh several private jets, not just one. He's got his own helicopter, he's got mansions in Portugal and Brazil, and uh he's got uh he's all over the world, basically with uh followers all over the world. And so he's probably the biggest is that Brazilian guy. But uh to focus back on Copeland for a minute, he uh uh well bring to bring in uh back back to our investigations back in in the Senate investigation, and uh when we were working with CBS and News and some others, we I drove around uh in Texas counties and camped out at uh at state parks, and and then I would go to a uh a courthouse in that county and look look up uh warranty deeds and uh you know basically uh uh any kind of deed document, whether it was trustee warranty deeds. And I found some uh oil wells, gas wells that uh that Copeland owned in in counties around uh around and in Oklahoma as well. And uh and in uh Arkansas, a lot of property de-owned by driving around and and and calling and calling courthouse, but in many cases I had to just go there. Now now the internet makes our work a lot easier in that in that case, in that respect. And so we do a lot of our most of our investigating right here from our office. So but uh so Copeland uh is a big player. Um the uh uh how to I just want to tell you a little bit about his how he how he does it. He claims all the time God speaks to him. And that is uh one one of the thing quotes he he is is I don't care if you think my house is too big, I don't care if you think it's too grand. I don't care what you think. God told me to build that house for glory, and so uh, and it's a parsonage. The the church paid for it. He lives there free. It's a uh we estimate it probably in any other state would uh in any other location like on the Pacific rather than on Eagle Mountain Lake would be worth uh 15 or 20 million, but but it's uh it's valued much less than that, a whole lot less than that by the county.

SPEAKER_01 20:57

Yeah, but anyway, uh and if and if it's if it's owned by the by the church, then it doesn't really matter what is valued at, it's not gonna be taxed.

SPEAKER_02 21:06

Exactly, exactly. And uh Jesse Planis, a similar situation. He's got probably got the biggest televangelist. We're talking about the biggest players. Uh he's got probably the biggest televangelist mansion uh in uh back uh in New Orleans, right outside New Orleans on the uh Mississippi River, and it is uh uh I want to say it's 35,000 square feet. Okay he claimed it was 40,000 square feet. Um and he claimed it was built cost 400 uh 400 a square foot. No. Is that right, Barry? Anyway, it it we we figured it was 20 million that it cost 20 million to build just it based on what he claimed uh

SPEAKER_01 22:01

And we're we're talking about we're talking about the big players, the the notable folks, the people that people have heard of. But in addition to those folks, there are countless uh minor players around uh the United States, the globe, that that seem to be bilk bilking people for money and and their own gratification um on a daily basis.

SPEAKER_02 22:26

One uh one that was president of the North American Securities Association administration. I may have said that wrong. She said there's she claimed there's more money stolen in the name of God than any other way.

SPEAKER_01 22:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:41

You probably run you probably run across that yourself.

SPEAKER_01 22:44

Uh yeah, you know, I'm I'm I'm a certified fraud examiner retired. I have I have certainly looked at a number of cases involving those kinds of things. And the difficulty is going back to when we first started the conversation, it's not very easy to prove fraud. It takes it takes a lot of work and it takes a lot of documentation and all that business. Let's talk about the Trinity Foundation. Tell us how that got started and how it's evolved over the years. I'm really curious about this this group.

SPEAKER_02 23:12

All right. Well, Trinity Foundation uh was started in 1973 by Oli Anthony and uh with and a group of other people uh that uh wanted to communicate Christ somehow in the media with uh uh movies, television, radio, whatever. And uh Oli was soon on the radio here in Dallas, and uh people began to be attracted. But but they threw a concert with Andrew Crouch and Disciples and Pat Boone and during a uh huge thunderstorm, rainstorm, and and nobody showed up, and Trinity lost a lot of money, and uh uh Trinity kind of went Trinity Foundation went underground for many years, and and but we started a Bible study. Um I started going to Bible study in uh 1974 when I was a freshman in college, and we uh but one of the things that we did while I was in college, and excuse me for getting off screen a little bit, but one of the things that Old Lee and I did while I was in college was we uh looked at Arbitron ratings uh of uh religious broadcasting. And uh um I kind of forgot about it for uh 15, 20, 20 years after that, but uh but that was my first four uh foray into uh investigating uh religious broadcasting was in college, and uh how uh people would get on television and always ask for money. And that's what uh really what happened to Oli because he uh he always lamented the fact that he was almost that he sort of started out as in being being a televangelist himself, and uh and that he uh but he he was grateful that uh everything failed and fell apart. And and because he and part of it was he realized that the the way the manipulation techniques to ask for for funds, it was sort of a survival of the fittest. The guy that could get solicit more more money out of people was the guy were the people that stayed on the air because of the cost of television programming. Yeah, and uh that that's sad because that's really the opposite of what the gospel's about. Is uh it they uh an early manual of disciples was if anybody comes to you asking for money, shun him. Um and uh that was called the Didique, and it's uh believed by most scholars to have been written by uh the disciples in the late uh uh around the first the turn of the century, the first century.

SPEAKER_01 26:15

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 26:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:16

Let me ask you this. Um you know, we've talked a little bit about the Trinity Foundation, how it started, how you got into looking at televangelists in general. No, no, no, that's totally fine. Let me ask you this when you set your sights on someone, what are you looking for and what investigative techniques are you using?

SPEAKER_02 26:38

Okay, now that that's a great question. Um we are uh looking for excess. First, we use property records, for instance, property sharp, redfin, Zillow, uh, realtor.com. We can we can look at a house that a televangelist or a mega church preacher owns or their beach house. We found at least 40, uh, you know, in addition to their their primary residence, uh that uh are uh and so that gives us an idea that that person is living a lavish lifestyle. Um and then uh as you're aware of the Graham Leech Bliley Act prevents us from looking at any uh any person's individual finances or ministry finances or or uh company finances, and so we have to go through uh anecdotal evidence from the the congregation from of what we can find online. Uh we use the FAA database to look for regularly look for uh private jets that are owned by televangelists and I said we regularly monitor social media sites, Twitter, X, Facebook, Instagram, visit county clerk databases online. Uh as I mentioned, we tried years ago traveled to county courthouses uh for grantee grantor documents. Uh we utilized aircraft tracking and registry tracking databases. There's one ADSB exchange that we can track aircraft real time. We don't publish any aircraft on the same day that they're where they're flying to or from. We always publish it the following day. We don't want to dox anybody, reveal anybody's current location. Yeah, and we don't we do that with with the houses too. I mean, we've got that in a in a uh a private document that's over 700 pages long, but it uh we have that in uh but we can we don't publish actual addresses of televangelist online. Uh we'll give it to a news agency that wants to fly a drone over it uh at a certain altitude and and show how massive it is, but uh that's about the as far as we'll go. Uh we uh use county appraisal district websites, we use Secretary of State databases, occasional surveillance, um, and then we pour over what little public financial information we can find. Uh are you familiar with the form 990 how?

SPEAKER_01 29:35

I know what it is, yes.

SPEAKER_02 29:37

Okay, yeah. It uh all nonprofits that are not religious in this country have to file some form of the 990 that uh whether it's a 990 EZ or a postcard 990 that reveals where the money goes. We're hoping to uh we may this may be a pipe dream, but uh if we're hoping to uh bound some sort of grassroots movement to uh get Congress to require the filing of the 990s for religious nonprofits, yeah, at least for religious auxiliaries that are not actually churches, because now they don't even look at religious auxiliaries. Um we found one religious auxiliary uh where $430 million just vanished from one year to the next, and they actually do file a 990, by the way. But uh that uh we wouldn't have been able to realize that if uh they don't file that. So what little public financial information we can find, we use that. Uh we subscribe to Televangelist mailings, we monitor monitor ministry websites, um, and we network with like-minded podcasters and YouTubers.

SPEAKER_01 31:03

You mentioned in your list of of techniques that you use for investigative purposes. Um, you did mention one of my favorite ones, which is trash pulls. Any any specific stories come up with trash poles that have been particularly fruitful?

SPEAKER_02 31:16

Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Um I can I I can tell you some fun stories. Uh uh probably the earliest one I remember that uh I'll never forget is uh I I pulled trash right on the street um from uh an organization called Mighty Eagle Travel, owned by Chris Hinn, Benny Hinn's brother. And so uh I uh took the trash. Uh and for people who don't know who Benny Hinn was, he he's still uh pumping out uh religious crusades, so to speak, around the world, uh, not so much in the US because he's been pretty much uh exposed here, but uh over and over and over. But uh we pull the trash and I'm sitting down behind a pawn shop, uh leaning against a tire on a warm October evening in shorts and t-shirt, and the police car pulls around, and I am uh I've got boxes spread around. Uh me, I'm putting boxes of things I want to keep in one box and then putting stuff back into bags to put back in the dumpster if I had to, uh, in another. And so the the police officer comes up to me and said, uh, okay, are you a private investigator? Yeah, yeah, I'm a private investigator. They looked at the trash and they said, Okay, you're either working for Benny Hinn or against him. Which is it? And I said, Well, I'd rather not say officer. And so he called his police captain in. They looked at my PI license, and they accused me of breaking and entering into mighty eagle travel. And I said, No, sir, I got this right off the street and out of the dumpster, and and that so uh long story short, they after threatening to arrest me, finally, they uh I'm sure they called somebody with the ministry, if not Benny Hinn himself, because half of the police force in Orlando at that time worked for uh crusades for for Benny on uh off duty. But uh they finally said, Okay, you can uh you can go. And I said, Well, what do you want me to do with the trash? You want me to put it back in the dumpster? And they said, You can do whatever you want. So I went back to my little garage apartment that was my temporary home that uh that fall, and uh they and I found all kinds of stuff. At the time, a $2,000 a night hotel room was you know that was wildly extravagant in the mid-90s. Yeah. And uh found $2,000 a night hotel rooms. I found a a uh travel document that uh Benny Hen and two of his bodyguards were gonna fly on the SST, supersonic transport from Kennedy Airport to London. A two-hour flight on the supersonic transport uh for $27,000. And you probably have to it would be $9,000 a piece for tickets. So now what would that be? Maybe $18,000 a piece for for a two-hour joyride to get uh get to London a little quicker. So uh anyway, that made news on uh CNN and uh uh and uh one of the investigators now works for uh or at least up until this month worked for uh 60 minutes, but uh they uh that that was uh that was a uh an interesting night.

SPEAKER_01 35:14

I'm just wondering, you've done undercover work um in these organizations, and I have. And and I'm curious about is that dangerous work? Do you if you're going undercover in that organization, do you ever feel like you're in danger?

SPEAKER_02 35:29

You've got bodyguards and police officers and you know heavies all around there were a couple times uh I was undercover in a cult in uh the Word of Fate fellowship. Uh, that uh some AP reporters wrote a book about it not many years ago, five years ago, and my stories in chapter three of the book, but that uh when I finally left the organization, I did feel I felt like what the hell is gonna happen to me. I had an undercover camera and a book bag, uh, and uh so I would I would film these people screaming a prayer at me and and moot shaking me a little bit and you know trying to get the devils out of me on eleven on 11 different occasions.

SPEAKER_01 36:16

Good luck with that.

SPEAKER_02 36:18

Yeah, yeah. So uh anyway, uh um I don't know if they succeeded. Anyway, uh no, I'm but after the following year I was undercover in Benningham Ministries, and that's when I uh at night I would do trash runs and I would run their uh printing press because I had experience running printing press in my dad's uh print shop uh during in a quick copy, and uh and I actually refreshed my skills in Orlando and then uh then was able to get the job. And I was in in their print shop when Benny walked in with the two CNN reporters I knew, and that was uh we just pretended not to know each other. Wow. But uh but anyway.

SPEAKER_01 37:07

Um I wanna I want to ask you, I want to ask you about um you you've got this, you know, you've you've talked about the plane registrations and all that stuff. You've you've mentioned that you won't do anything that would lead to doxing, like publishing things on the same day, but um you have a Pastor Plains blog. Tell me about that.

SPEAKER_02 37:27

All right. Well, uh we had been uh working with Inside Edition uh in uh 2019, 2020, right during COVID as well. But uh we were having a lot of success with this new website called ADSB Exchange, finding trips to Pastors Private Mansions and trips to the uh uh Caribbean to Bermuda and other places. And so uh Barry got this idea um back in uh in 2021. Why don't we just start a plot Pastor Plains blog and and start tracking uh televangelists and mega church preachers' jets? And so we uh uh we started the blog and uh started posting our findings and and uh now we have uh a quite a following. I'm not sure how many people now, but we also helped uh an organization, fellow organization called Ministry Watch, and they uh we summarize and give them a spreadsheet every month and they publish it on their website. They have more more uh subscribers than we do.

SPEAKER_01 38:52

So it seems to me, um Pete, that that what you're basically doing is shining a light on on this this small little world, um, not so small little world. Um do you feel like that what you're doing helps convince people to stop following these television evangelists? Um or do you do people get really mad at you for attacking something they desperately want to believe in?

SPEAKER_02 39:19

That's a really good question because uh people that once once you give money to an organization, uh and you're so conscious you're you're invested in that organization, whether you believe it consciously or not. Um and uh it's very difficult to convince somebody that is giving to uh a megachurch that uh that has a uh a really dodgy pastor that uh is uh you know living in a mansion, flying uh private jet to his beach house, and uh has a uh different uh you know life coaching company that he gets money from and as he has his yacht and everything. It's difficult to convince somebody that uh that uh that's a misuse of donor money. To me, it's it's patently obvious. But um to somebody that's that's caught up in that, that's a that go well, he well, he does preach the gospel, and well, he does do a lot of they claim he does do a lot of good. I help helped one woman. Sometimes we call somebody a chronic tither. They they they gave to a lot of different ministries. She gave to Ben ministries, and I I uh at the time I knew I called the lawyer, we had helped him. Well, that was that's a whole nother sub subject, but we helped the lawyer uh on a certain case, and he was able to get $2,000 back from the ministry to this woman. Yeah, and uh and then a year later she calls me back and uh Pete, I I gave another $2,000 to Benny Hand Ministries. Can you help me get it back again? And I said, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, ma'am. No, I know we can't. And uh so uh that there is a that level of difficulty in convincing people, but what we can help are the relatives of people who can gradually uh explain to their grandmother or their mother that uh um you know look at look at this, you know. I just saw this uh expose here, and these people are reporting this about this person. And so um that uh and hopefully it will convince people that uh that are that are on the border of uh of either going or uh donating to the organization that uh what the problem is. And we're we're uh we're wanting to encourage accountability and uh integrity and uh transparency. Yeah. And and that's what's so uh desperately lacking in this country with religious organizations.

SPEAKER_01 42:36

Yeah, yeah, no doubt. I mean, let me ask you this is totally not on on the list of questions that Kim had for me, but um how accurate how accurate is the righteous gym gemstones?

SPEAKER_02 42:50

The righteous gemstones they borrowed a lot of them from uh uh uh from investigations that we helped with, you know. And so uh uh as far as admissions of fraud, uh well, yeah, true. I I am a I am this this person. You don't get that very often. You don't get an admission of guilt. Uh we uh but uh I you know I pray for repentance for for people investigating.

SPEAKER_01 43:29

I I I'm going to make the assumption, and I think I'm safe in making this assumption that you are a person of faith, that this has a deep meaning to you. Has this work changed your relationship with your faith?

SPEAKER_02 43:41

It has really it's deepened my faith because I I believe in the holiness and the perfection of the of uh Christ Himself. And and so and and when I see that uh that okay, I'm wanting uh more than I have, I'm wanting, you know, wanting, wanting, wanting. If I'm going back into that, I have to say, Father, forgive me.

SPEAKER_01 44:09

Pete Evans, thank you so much for being here with me today and and sharing these stories. If if people want to talk to you, what's the best way for someone to get in touch? If somebody has a family member that's donating, they want to get some information. What's the best way to get in touch with Pete Evans?

SPEAKER_02 44:25

Uh they can email Trinity at Trinityfi.org. They can call at 214-827-2625. That's our office number. Um and especially uh we need informants as well. They're welcome to call. I love it. So uh anyway, I uh hope that can be of some use to your viewers.

SPEAKER_01 44:55

I th I think this is I think this has been a fascinating conversation. Look, it's it's not every day that we get to talk to someone who is a person of faith. Basically trying to uh highlight uh fraud and excess and and how people are being uh uh robbed of their money. Um and you're not just doing it as uh a religious organization or a religious group. You're you're actually licensed private investigators working on specific cases, and that's fascinating to me. Pete, thank you. Thank you so much again for being here. Um I hope you have a great rest of the week.

SPEAKER_02 45:31

Thank you, Al. And we barely scratched the surface on every question on good talking to you, Al.

SPEAKER_01 45:40

For my folks listening out there, I'm Hal Humphrey, your host, and that is your sound of pursuit for this week.

SPEAKER_00 45:47

You've been listening to the sound of pursuit. The podcast by Pursuit magazine.