{"article":{"id":115628,"heading":"GANGS, YOUTH, BLOODS, AND THE CRIPTS IN THE NAME OF JESUS","author":"Jacqueline Amos","created":"2004-08-14 20:25:24","modified":"2013-11-11 00:30:37","last_modified":"Mon, 11 Nov 2013 07:30:37","article":"

GANGS, YOUTH, BLOOD, AND THE CRIPTS

DEVIL WORSHIP





The cries of our children,

the crypts a formation where

Jesus laid, the blood that he shed,

the pain that flows

through our children vain.

Manifestations of lost souls,

who inflict pain for the

rituals starving for the

Connection of an ancestor

who gave his life that man would be free.

Within theses walls a thirsting to belong, a family which dose not exist.

The false teachings

and leaders that don’t exist.

Listen to the screams

of the 4th generations

which have been cursed.

The crypts the pain beaten

into a circle, strength

that he must show,

pain must be inflicted

to receive the crown,

of a King Jesus.

Religion against Religion,

Gang against Gang,

territory against territory,

brother against brother.

Satins who is your God?

During the duration of this world order,

Symbolizations of a confusion of a false

Jesus that our babies represent,

seeking for the prophet of our brother.

The rag that symbolize there

interpretations of the robe

which thy

Brother Jesus wore,

as they lynched him to the cross.

Thrusting for there brother

when the leaders ignore there plea.

Is anybody listening?

Who really gives a dam?

The cries of our children,

the crypts a formation where

Jesus laid, the blood that he shed,

the pain that flows

through our children vain.

Manifestations of lost souls,

who inflict pain for the

rituals starving for the

connection of there ancestor

who gave his life that man

would be free.

Within theses walls

a thirsting to belong,

a family which dose not exist.

The false teachings

and leaders that don’t exist.

Listen to the screams

of the 4th generations

which have been cursed.

The crypts the pain

beaten into a circle,

strength that he must show.



Pain must be inflicted

to receive the crown of a King Jesus.

Religion against Religion,

Gang against gang,

Territory against Territory,

Brother against Brother.

Satins who is your God?

Criminals on patrol, forsaken an image

which knows nothing of which it followers,

the link between heaven and hell.

Under Satins Authority

U.S.A

The blood that drips

from my brothers mouth,

the blood that flowed from Jesus

hand, the thieves that stood

before the cross,

the murder of a savior

who only brought love,

the death of thy

brother by ones own hand.

They killed the savior because he

wanted to teach the words of God.



The gangsters that wait upon my death.

There is no Father he can call,

when the devil

steals from the cradle

death before life.

There is no image to

teach him self control,

when the word God

is delivered as a bad word.

The Father and the Son and the spirit.

Brothers willing to die

for the color of its rag.

Brothers who link the battle

within the Universe.

Brothers who call each other Son.

Son of the Father,

listen to the screams of the Youth

A thirst for there Fathers blood.

The symbolizations to relive the past.



Mycological lynching each and every day.

Long to hear the words

from thy Almighty son.

Let me tell you the secrets

of being a great man.

Oh how I cry upon the night,

turning my pillows on the other side.

The termination of God,

which is used within

our youth’s crowd,

Curse by the sperm

that created darkness

that there Son’s may cry.

A King which they are.



Sisters and Brothers joined

within the furor of hell.

Devil worshipers God

said the curse shall fall

upon the children,

Let me break it down

nice and slow, blind that refuse to see,

when the light is a clear,

Genocide within the

rotten roots of a fool.

The thieves that stood

before the cross,

the betrayal as the foundation

of parents

who just don’t give a dam,

fathers who abandon there seeds.

Mama baby daddy maybe who really give f--.

Crying that slave masters did it to me,

Get of the titter and free your self.

Feeding our children that the hooded mask

is the ruler of the land.

Conformity of a coward who moans

for a mans approval

and relinquishing the powers

of one God. When you teach

a man he is lost

because he has no rights,

and you feel them with

Toxins that he has no past.

You tell him he is

already dead, when he has

chose in his life

What God has ordained no man can erase.

Listen as they cry

out that he refuse to be a slave

And he will rather be dead, than be a slave

In this world order, the warrior with no

Since of directions, the elder must lead

Said thy God, a destiny that is doom

With the cowardly

conformity of ancient myths

White powder that clouds the mind,

kill my brother sell him dope.

A universe of Zombies the walking dead.

Children raising children,

Children raising parents.

Close minds saviors

that live in the dark.

A spirituality that is

confused by the young.

And the savior of self has no clue.

The sanctions of truth

within the destruction

of mans own right hand.



The tree the root defines

a series of versatile

crying to be release,

the blood that continues

to leak, until the

fountains run dry,

knowledge and wisdom

activities and events.

The historical significance

summoned by the ancestors,

reconsidered as the

blood of thy brother,

shall continue to repeat

until the mission

of thy father answers to the curse,

trampling on Gods creations

shall not be erased,

both culturally and

physically relevant

to the link to the

heavens and earth.

Copywriter 2002

<\/p>\n","contact":"jackieamos2@netzero.com","link":"","address":"","phone":"718 455-0289","parent_id":0,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","summary":"The thieves that stood \r\nbefore the cross, \r\nthe betrayal as the foundation\r\nof parents who don't have a clue.\r\nThe cries of spirituality that youth\r\nseeks within the circles of hell.\r\nwho just don\u2019t give a dam\r\nchildren who cry out for help,\r\nleaders who don't know how\r\nto lead, and social workers,\r\nwho don't know how to be \r\nsocial, teachers who don't \r\nknow how to teach.\r\n","numcomment":2,"fileurl":"\/uploads\/2004\/08\/tuthmosis20iii201504bc.jpg","filesize":"16.9 kibibytes","article_url":"\/news\/2004\/08\/115628.php","image":{"original":"\/uploads\/2004\/08\/tuthmosis20iii201504bc.jpg","small":"\/uploads\/2004\/08\/tuthmosis20iii201504bc.jpgthumb.jpg"}},"attachments":[],"comments":[{"id":122574,"heading":"HOW CAN JESUS HELP WHEN THE LEADERS DONT ACT LIKE JESUS","article":"A former worker at TBN threatened to disclose an alleged 1996 homosexual encounter.\r\n\r\n\r\nTelevangelist Paul Crouch, founder of the world's largest Christian broadcasting network, has waged a fierce legal battle to prevent a former employee from publicizing allegations that he and Crouch had a sexual encounter eight years ago.\r\n\r\nCrouch, 70, is the president of Trinity Broadcasting Network, based in Orange County, whose Christian programming reaches millions of viewers around the world via satellite, cable and broadcast stations.\r\n\r\nThe source of the allegations against him is Enoch Lonnie Ford, who met Crouch at a TBN-affiliated drug treatment center in 1991 and later went to work for the ministry.\r\n\r\nAfter Ford threatened to sue TBN in 1998, claiming that he had been unjustly fired, Crouch reached a $425,000 settlement with him. In return, Ford agreed, among other things, not to discuss his claim about a sexual encounter with the TV preacher.\r\n\r\nBut in the last year, Ford has threatened to go public with his story, prompting a flurry of legal maneuvers \u2014 conducted in closed court hearings, sealed pleadings and private arbitration.\r\n\r\nIn court papers, Crouch has denied the allegations, and ministry officials have described Ford \u2014 who has a history of drug problems and has served time for a sex offense \u2014 as a liar and an extortionist.\r\n\r\nAt stake are the public image of one of the world's most successful televangelists and, potentially, the fortunes of the broadcasting empire that Crouch and his wife, Jan, built over the last 31 years.\r\n\r\nTBN and Crouch went on the legal offensive after they learned that Ford had written a book manuscript that included an account of the alleged sexual encounter.\r\n\r\nIn a dramatic flourish, Ford had appeared at a TBN broadcast studio in Costa Mesa, minutes before the start of a "Praise-a-thon" fundraiser, and, without comment, handed Crouch a copy of the manuscript\r\n\r\nFord's lawyer later told ministry officials that they could keep the work out of public view by buying the rights. After some discussion, he suggested that $10 million might be a reasonable price.\r\n\r\nWhile negotiations continued, Crouch sued to enforce the 1998 secrecy agreement and obtained a restraining order barring Ford from seeking a publisher for his book.\r\n\r\nOrange County Superior Court Judge John M. Watson also granted Crouch's request to conduct the case in secret, sealing all documents and expunging any mention of the suit from public court records.\r\n\r\nBoth sides eventually agreed to let a private arbitrator decide the matter. In June, the arbitrator ruled that Ford could not publish the manuscript without violating the 1998 settlement \u2014 an act that could subject him to monetary damages.\r\n\r\nThis account of the controversy is drawn from interviews with friends of Ford's, unsealed court records, correspondence among TBN lawyers and a copy of the arbitrator's confidential ruling. The arbitrator's decision contains details about the 1998 settlement and Ford's manuscript \u2014 both of which are under seal.\r\n\r\nRecords and interviews show that even as they battled to keep Ford's story from leaking, TBN lawyers worried that details would eventually come out.\r\n\r\n"I am absolutely amazed that Lonnie hasn't gone to Penthouse or Dianne [sic] Sawyer with his manuscript, notwithstanding the [judge's] injunction," TBN attorney Dennis G. Brewer Sr. wrote in a March letter to the network's other lawyers.\r\n\r\nIn a subsequent letter, in May, Brewer mentioned the anguish that Ford's accusations had caused Crouch's youngest son, Matt, when he learned of them in 1998.\r\n\r\nBrewer wrote that the younger Crouch had told his then-law partner, David Middlebrook: "I am devastated; I am confronted with having to face the fact that my father is a homosexual."\r\n\r\nMiddlebrook and Matt Crouch have denied that there was such a conversation.\r\n\r\n\r\nMillions of viewers\r\n\r\n\r\nPaul and Jan Crouch started TBN in 1973, using a rented studio in Santa Ana. Over the next three decades, they built a worldwide broadcasting network by buying TV stations and negotiating deals with cable systems and satellite companies.\r\n\r\nToday, TBN's 24-hour-a-day menu of sermons, faith healing, inspirational movies and other Christian fare reaches millions of viewers from Spain to the Solomon Islands.\r\n\r\nPaul Crouch is the driving entrepreneurial force behind the network and one of its most popular on-air personalities. He and Jan, his wife of 46 years, have cultivated a folksy on-screen image as a devoted couple.\r\n\r\nTBN officials have long been concerned about how Ford's allegations could affect the network, which relies heavily on donations from viewers. Officials said they were particularly worried about possible comparisons to the scandal that brought down televangelist Jim Bakker in 1987.\r\n\r\nBakker resigned from his PTL Ministries in 1987 after admitting to paying a secretary $265,000 in ministry funds to be silent about an earlier affair. Bakker later went to prison for bilking donors.\r\n\r\nTBN officials said they were careful not to pay Ford with ministry funds in 1998. They declined to say whether the money came from an insurer, Crouch personally or some other source.\r\n\r\nFord, 41, said he could not discuss his manuscript or his allegations against Crouch but he did provide basic facts about his background and his time at TBN.\r\n\r\nFord, whose father and grandfather were ministers, grew up in Fairfax County, Va., moved to California in 1989 and worked in a string of jobs that included jewelry salesman, produce clerk and gas station attendant. For years, he struggled to kick a cocaine habit.\r\n\r\nIn 1991, he checked into a Christian drug treatment program in Colleyville, Texas, on a TBN-owned ranch. It was there that Ford met Crouch. In 1992 the network hired him to work on a phone bank in Orange County. Ford said he also ran errands for the Crouches and drove Paul Crouch to appointments.\r\n\r\nFord repeatedly ran into trouble with the law, but TBN stood behind him. In 1994, he pleaded no contest in San Bernardino County to having sex with a 17-year-old boy and served six months in jail, according to court records. TBN took him back after his release.\r\n\r\nIn 1995, he pleaded guilty in Orange County to possession of cocaine and served about 30 days in County Jail. Again, TBN took him back.\r\n\r\n\r\nLake Arrowhead cabin\r\n\r\n\r\nThe alleged sexual encounter between Ford and Crouch occurred in the fall of 1996, according to Sandi Mahlow, a Tustin housewife who met Ford in a Fullerton church 10 years ago and became a close friend.\r\n\r\nMahlow, 50, who helped Ford write his manuscript, said he broke down in tears after returning from a weekend spent alone with Crouch at a TBN-owned cabin near Lake Arrowhead. Mahlow said Ford told her that he and Crouch had engaged in sexual acts.\r\n\r\n"Lonnie had a lot of bad traits; one thing he isn't, and that's a liar," Mahlow said. She said she helped Ford with his manuscript for no pay, as a favor to a friend, and has no financial interest in the book.\r\n\r\nAfter the alleged encounter, Ford continued to work at TBN. For a time, he lived rent-free in an apartment at the network's Tustin headquarters, according to Mahlow and another friend of Ford's, Diane Benson, who met him at an Anaheim church 14 years ago.\r\n\r\nA third friend of Ford's said that in October 1996, about the time of the alleged Arrowhead encounter, ministry officials gave her a $12,000 check to pay back money Ford owed her. The woman spoke on condition that she not be named, saying she feared retaliation.\r\n\r\nTBN officials acknowledged that the ministry paid some of Ford's debts. They said the network commonly extends such generosity to employees in financial trouble.\r\n\r\nWithin weeks of the Arrowhead trip, Ford tested positive for drug use and was arrested for violating terms of his probation. While Ford awaited sentencing, the ministry again came to his support, urging the judge not to impose more prison time.\r\n\r\nFord "has continuously shown a very positive attitude regarding whatever we have asked him to do," wrote Ruth M. Brown, Paul Crouch's sister and TBN's director of personnel. "He carried out his duties cheerfully and always tries to do more than asked."\r\n\r\nThe judge sent Ford to the California Rehabilitation Center in Norco, a drug treatment facility in the state prison system.\r\n\r\nIn August 1997, Jay Jones, TBN's director of telephone ministry, wrote prison officials that Ford would have a job with the network after he got out, despite his "extended leave of absence."\r\n\r\nBut Ford said that after he was released in February 1998, he was told he no longer had a position at TBN.\r\n\r\n"There comes a point in time when you have to say, 'Enough is enough,' " said John Casoria, a TBN lawyer who is a nephew of the Crouches.\r\n\r\nFord responded with his threat to sue. The settlement followed.\r\n\r\nDespite TBN's efforts to keep Ford's charges secret, they surfaced in an unrelated 1998 lawsuit. A former bodyguard for TBN personality Benny Hinn testified in a deposition that during a European bus tour that year, Hinn had told a group of associates about "a sexual relationship that Paul Crouch had with his chauffeur."\r\n\r\nThe witness, Mario C. Licciardello, quoted Hinn as saying: "Paul's defense was that he was drunk."\r\n\r\nHinn and six others mentioned by Licciardello, who died in 2000, told The Times that Hinn never made such remarks. However, Rick Jones, a retired police officer and ordained minister who worked for Hinn, said he heard Hinn talk about Crouch's alleged homosexual relationship on that bus.\r\n\r\nJones said he was disgusted by the talk and "got up and walked away. I didn't want to hear gossip."\r\n\r\n\r\nAsking $10 million\r\n\r\n\r\nMeanwhile, Ford began to have second thoughts about keeping silent. Last year, with Mahlow's help, he wrote his manuscript, titled "Arrowhead."\r\n\r\nFriends said Ford wanted to expose what he viewed as Crouch's hypocrisy. They said he also needed money and hoped to earn some by selling the manuscript. It's unclear how Ford spent his 1998 settlement, but today he leads a modest existence, living in a room of a Lake Forest home and working as a mortgage salesman.\r\n\r\nMinistry officials learned of the book in April 2003, when Ford walked onto the set of TBN's Costa Mesa broadcast studio and handed a copy of the manuscript to Crouch.\r\n\r\nFord's attorney, Eugene Zech, said that Brewer, the TBN lawyer, called him the next business day. In court papers, Zech said that Brewer asked "if Ford might be willing to accept $1 million in exchange for the manuscript."\r\n\r\nZech said in the court filing that he suggested $10 million.\r\n\r\nWhen the parties went to arbitration, Crouch's lawyers argued that publication would violate the 1998 settlement and cause irreparable damage to Crouch's reputation. Ford's lawyers argued that the secrecy agreement was overly broad and violated his free-speech rights.\r\n\r\nArbitrator Robert J. Neill ruled that Ford's right to make his allegations public "was sold to [Crouch] for $425,000." Ford "bargained away his right to speak on certain matters and now suggests that his right to free speech trumps that bargain\u2026. [His] right to discuss these matters was bought and paid for. He relinquished that right."\r\n\r\nPaul Crouch Jr., a TBN executive and the televangelist's oldest son, said that despite the favorable ruling, he wished his father had never entered into the settlement with Ford.\r\n\r\nCrouch said advisors persuaded his father that it would be cheaper to settle than to litigate. He said TBN was particularly anxious to avoid negative publicity because the ministry was celebrating its 25th anniversary that year.\r\n\r\n"In hindsight, we should have fought Lonnie tooth and nail," the son said in an interview. "We should have drawn the battle lines right there." \r\n\r\n Read ktla.trb.com online","author":"BETH.MC","parent_id":115628,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","created":"2005-02-15 11:27:43","modified":"2013-11-11 00:32:08","fileurl":"\/usr\/local\/www-domains\/la.indymedia.org\/public\/uploads\/2005\/02\/beth_mc_operator.jpg","image":{"original":"\/usr\/local\/www-domains\/la.indymedia.org\/public\/uploads\/2005\/02\/beth_mc_operator.jpg"}},{"id":122576,"heading":"HOW CAN JESUS HELP WHEN THE LEADERS DONT ACT LIKE JESUS","article":"A former worker at TBN threatened to disclose an alleged 1996 homosexual encounter.\r\n\r\n\r\nTelevangelist Paul Crouch, founder of the world's largest Christian broadcasting network, has waged a fierce legal battle to prevent a former employee from publicizing allegations that he and Crouch had a sexual encounter eight years ago.\r\n\r\nCrouch, 70, is the president of Trinity Broadcasting Network, based in Orange County, whose Christian programming reaches millions of viewers around the world via satellite, cable and broadcast stations.\r\n\r\nThe source of the allegations against him is Enoch Lonnie Ford, who met Crouch at a TBN-affiliated drug treatment center in 1991 and later went to work for the ministry.\r\n\r\nAfter Ford threatened to sue TBN in 1998, claiming that he had been unjustly fired, Crouch reached a $425,000 settlement with him. In return, Ford agreed, among other things, not to discuss his claim about a sexual encounter with the TV preacher.\r\n\r\nBut in the last year, Ford has threatened to go public with his story, prompting a flurry of legal maneuvers \u2014 conducted in closed court hearings, sealed pleadings and private arbitration.\r\n\r\nIn court papers, Crouch has denied the allegations, and ministry officials have described Ford \u2014 who has a history of drug problems and has served time for a sex offense \u2014 as a liar and an extortionist.\r\n\r\nAt stake are the public image of one of the world's most successful televangelists and, potentially, the fortunes of the broadcasting empire that Crouch and his wife, Jan, built over the last 31 years.\r\n\r\nTBN and Crouch went on the legal offensive after they learned that Ford had written a book manuscript that included an account of the alleged sexual encounter.\r\n\r\nIn a dramatic flourish, Ford had appeared at a TBN broadcast studio in Costa Mesa, minutes before the start of a "Praise-a-thon" fundraiser, and, without comment, handed Crouch a copy of the manuscript\r\n\r\nFord's lawyer later told ministry officials that they could keep the work out of public view by buying the rights. After some discussion, he suggested that $10 million might be a reasonable price.\r\n\r\nWhile negotiations continued, Crouch sued to enforce the 1998 secrecy agreement and obtained a restraining order barring Ford from seeking a publisher for his book.\r\n\r\nOrange County Superior Court Judge John M. Watson also granted Crouch's request to conduct the case in secret, sealing all documents and expunging any mention of the suit from public court records.\r\n\r\nBoth sides eventually agreed to let a private arbitrator decide the matter. In June, the arbitrator ruled that Ford could not publish the manuscript without violating the 1998 settlement \u2014 an act that could subject him to monetary damages.\r\n\r\nThis account of the controversy is drawn from interviews with friends of Ford's, unsealed court records, correspondence among TBN lawyers and a copy of the arbitrator's confidential ruling. The arbitrator's decision contains details about the 1998 settlement and Ford's manuscript \u2014 both of which are under seal.\r\n\r\nRecords and interviews show that even as they battled to keep Ford's story from leaking, TBN lawyers worried that details would eventually come out.\r\n\r\n"I am absolutely amazed that Lonnie hasn't gone to Penthouse or Dianne [sic] Sawyer with his manuscript, notwithstanding the [judge's] injunction," TBN attorney Dennis G. Brewer Sr. wrote in a March letter to the network's other lawyers.\r\n\r\nIn a subsequent letter, in May, Brewer mentioned the anguish that Ford's accusations had caused Crouch's youngest son, Matt, when he learned of them in 1998.\r\n\r\nBrewer wrote that the younger Crouch had told his then-law partner, David Middlebrook: "I am devastated; I am confronted with having to face the fact that my father is a homosexual."\r\n\r\nMiddlebrook and Matt Crouch have denied that there was such a conversation.\r\n\r\n\r\nMillions of viewers\r\n\r\n\r\nPaul and Jan Crouch started TBN in 1973, using a rented studio in Santa Ana. Over the next three decades, they built a worldwide broadcasting network by buying TV stations and negotiating deals with cable systems and satellite companies.\r\n\r\nToday, TBN's 24-hour-a-day menu of sermons, faith healing, inspirational movies and other Christian fare reaches millions of viewers from Spain to the Solomon Islands.\r\n\r\nPaul Crouch is the driving entrepreneurial force behind the network and one of its most popular on-air personalities. He and Jan, his wife of 46 years, have cultivated a folksy on-screen image as a devoted couple.\r\n\r\nTBN officials have long been concerned about how Ford's allegations could affect the network, which relies heavily on donations from viewers. Officials said they were particularly worried about possible comparisons to the scandal that brought down televangelist Jim Bakker in 1987.\r\n\r\nBakker resigned from his PTL Ministries in 1987 after admitting to paying a secretary $265,000 in ministry funds to be silent about an earlier affair. Bakker later went to prison for bilking donors.\r\n\r\nTBN officials said they were careful not to pay Ford with ministry funds in 1998. They declined to say whether the money came from an insurer, Crouch personally or some other source.\r\n\r\nFord, 41, said he could not discuss his manuscript or his allegations against Crouch but he did provide basic facts about his background and his time at TBN.\r\n\r\nFord, whose father and grandfather were ministers, grew up in Fairfax County, Va., moved to California in 1989 and worked in a string of jobs that included jewelry salesman, produce clerk and gas station attendant. For years, he struggled to kick a cocaine habit.\r\n\r\nIn 1991, he checked into a Christian drug treatment program in Colleyville, Texas, on a TBN-owned ranch. It was there that Ford met Crouch. In 1992 the network hired him to work on a phone bank in Orange County. Ford said he also ran errands for the Crouches and drove Paul Crouch to appointments.\r\n\r\nFord repeatedly ran into trouble with the law, but TBN stood behind him. In 1994, he pleaded no contest in San Bernardino County to having sex with a 17-year-old boy and served six months in jail, according to court records. TBN took him back after his release.\r\n\r\nIn 1995, he pleaded guilty in Orange County to possession of cocaine and served about 30 days in County Jail. Again, TBN took him back.\r\n\r\n\r\nLake Arrowhead cabin\r\n\r\n\r\nThe alleged sexual encounter between Ford and Crouch occurred in the fall of 1996, according to Sandi Mahlow, a Tustin housewife who met Ford in a Fullerton church 10 years ago and became a close friend.\r\n\r\nMahlow, 50, who helped Ford write his manuscript, said he broke down in tears after returning from a weekend spent alone with Crouch at a TBN-owned cabin near Lake Arrowhead. Mahlow said Ford told her that he and Crouch had engaged in sexual acts.\r\n\r\n"Lonnie had a lot of bad traits; one thing he isn't, and that's a liar," Mahlow said. She said she helped Ford with his manuscript for no pay, as a favor to a friend, and has no financial interest in the book.\r\n\r\nAfter the alleged encounter, Ford continued to work at TBN. For a time, he lived rent-free in an apartment at the network's Tustin headquarters, according to Mahlow and another friend of Ford's, Diane Benson, who met him at an Anaheim church 14 years ago.\r\n\r\nA third friend of Ford's said that in October 1996, about the time of the alleged Arrowhead encounter, ministry officials gave her a $12,000 check to pay back money Ford owed her. The woman spoke on condition that she not be named, saying she feared retaliation.\r\n\r\nTBN officials acknowledged that the ministry paid some of Ford's debts. They said the network commonly extends such generosity to employees in financial trouble.\r\n\r\nWithin weeks of the Arrowhead trip, Ford tested positive for drug use and was arrested for violating terms of his probation. While Ford awaited sentencing, the ministry again came to his support, urging the judge not to impose more prison time.\r\n\r\nFord "has continuously shown a very positive attitude regarding whatever we have asked him to do," wrote Ruth M. Brown, Paul Crouch's sister and TBN's director of personnel. "He carried out his duties cheerfully and always tries to do more than asked."\r\n\r\nThe judge sent Ford to the California Rehabilitation Center in Norco, a drug treatment facility in the state prison system.\r\n\r\nIn August 1997, Jay Jones, TBN's director of telephone ministry, wrote prison officials that Ford would have a job with the network after he got out, despite his "extended leave of absence."\r\n\r\nBut Ford said that after he was released in February 1998, he was told he no longer had a position at TBN.\r\n\r\n"There comes a point in time when you have to say, 'Enough is enough,' " said John Casoria, a TBN lawyer who is a nephew of the Crouches.\r\n\r\nFord responded with his threat to sue. The settlement followed.\r\n\r\nDespite TBN's efforts to keep Ford's charges secret, they surfaced in an unrelated 1998 lawsuit. A former bodyguard for TBN personality Benny Hinn testified in a deposition that during a European bus tour that year, Hinn had told a group of associates about "a sexual relationship that Paul Crouch had with his chauffeur."\r\n\r\nThe witness, Mario C. Licciardello, quoted Hinn as saying: "Paul's defense was that he was drunk."\r\n\r\nHinn and six others mentioned by Licciardello, who died in 2000, told The Times that Hinn never made such remarks. However, Rick Jones, a retired police officer and ordained minister who worked for Hinn, said he heard Hinn talk about Crouch's alleged homosexual relationship on that bus.\r\n\r\nJones said he was disgusted by the talk and "got up and walked away. I didn't want to hear gossip."\r\n\r\n\r\nAsking $10 million\r\n\r\n\r\nMeanwhile, Ford began to have second thoughts about keeping silent. Last year, with Mahlow's help, he wrote his manuscript, titled "Arrowhead."\r\n\r\nFriends said Ford wanted to expose what he viewed as Crouch's hypocrisy. They said he also needed money and hoped to earn some by selling the manuscript. It's unclear how Ford spent his 1998 settlement, but today he leads a modest existence, living in a room of a Lake Forest home and working as a mortgage salesman.\r\n\r\nMinistry officials learned of the book in April 2003, when Ford walked onto the set of TBN's Costa Mesa broadcast studio and handed a copy of the manuscript to Crouch.\r\n\r\nFord's attorney, Eugene Zech, said that Brewer, the TBN lawyer, called him the next business day. In court papers, Zech said that Brewer asked "if Ford might be willing to accept $1 million in exchange for the manuscript."\r\n\r\nZech said in the court filing that he suggested $10 million.\r\n\r\nWhen the parties went to arbitration, Crouch's lawyers argued that publication would violate the 1998 settlement and cause irreparable damage to Crouch's reputation. Ford's lawyers argued that the secrecy agreement was overly broad and violated his free-speech rights.\r\n\r\nArbitrator Robert J. Neill ruled that Ford's right to make his allegations public "was sold to [Crouch] for $425,000." Ford "bargained away his right to speak on certain matters and now suggests that his right to free speech trumps that bargain\u2026. [His] right to discuss these matters was bought and paid for. He relinquished that right."\r\n\r\nPaul Crouch Jr., a TBN executive and the televangelist's oldest son, said that despite the favorable ruling, he wished his father had never entered into the settlement with Ford.\r\n\r\nCrouch said advisors persuaded his father that it would be cheaper to settle than to litigate. He said TBN was particularly anxious to avoid negative publicity because the ministry was celebrating its 25th anniversary that year.\r\n\r\n"In hindsight, we should have fought Lonnie tooth and nail," the son said in an interview. "We should have drawn the battle lines right there." \r\n\r\n Read ktla.trb.com online","author":"BETH.MC","parent_id":115628,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","created":"2005-02-15 11:30:42","modified":"2013-11-11 00:32:08","fileurl":"\/usr\/local\/www-domains\/la.indymedia.org\/public\/uploads\/2005\/02\/operator.beth_mc.jpg","image":{"original":"\/usr\/local\/www-domains\/la.indymedia.org\/public\/uploads\/2005\/02\/operator.beth_mc.jpg"}}]}