Another former Cerullo associate accuses him of fund-raising fraud

San Diego Union-Tribune, June 24, 2000
By Alex Roth

Suit says promises to donors not kept

A former executive with televangelist Morris Cerullo's ministry has filed a
lawsuit saying he was fired after confronting Cerullo about "unethical and
fraudulent fund-raising techniques."
John Paul Warren's suit, filed last month in San Diego Superior Court, is
the second such lawsuit this year against Cerullo, a 68-year-old San
Diego-based evangelist known for his cable network and worldwide crusades.
Another former executive sued in March, saying he resigned after confronting
Cerullo about unspecified "fund-raising abuses." Both suits were filed by
the same lawyer.

Cerullo, whose ministry says it has trained 1.3 million people around the
world in Christian proselytizing, says the claims are completely false. "The
Bible teaches us not to take our brothers to court," Cerullo said. Warren's
suit says Cerullo reneged on a promise to give each $1,500 donor a satellite
dish allowing access to the ministry's Global Prayer Satellite Network. To
Warren's knowledge, none of the donors received a dish, according to the
suit.

The lawsuit also accuses Cerullo of hiring Warren for the unstated purpose
of gaining access to the confidential 5,000-name donor list that Warren had
built up during his 20 years as a minister in Northern California. The
lawsuit says Cerullo hired Warren in 1998 with a promise to make him "second
in command" and "successor" when Cerullo retired at the end of 2000.
Instead, it says, Warren was given a lesser position, and was fired in
October 1999 after confronting Cerullo about "several integrity issues."
Warren's lawyer, Dean Broyles, said Cerullo routinely coaxed money from
donors by promising to spend it in certain ways, then didn't follow through.
"Both of my clients were very high up within the organization and they were
privy to and personally observed a lot of ethical misconduct within the
industry," Broyles said. "In my humble opinion, that's why they're no longer
there."

Broyles' other client, Harry Turner, accuses Cerullo of taking back his
bonus and saying bad things about him after Turner confronted Cerullo about
his fund-raising methods.

Turner, who was senior vice president with Morris Cerullo World Evangelism,
resigned in December.

Cerullo's lawyer, Richard Towne, said he could not comment in detail about
the allegations, but called both lawsuits "without merit" and "specifically
false."

"The facts of the employment dispute with each one will come out in the
course of the case," he said.

Cerullo-who says his Christian cable network is the second-largest of its
kind in the world-ran into controversy this year for placing ads in 80
unsuspecting Jewish newspapers for a made-for-TV movie that turned out to be
a pitch to convert to Christianity.

In the ads, the movie, titled "The Rabbi," had been billed as a film about
an Israeli rabbi's struggle with modernity.

In a telephone interview this week, Cerullo said he could not comment on the
two lawsuits other than to say he had done nothing improper and had never
before been sued by former employees.

He said he offered to settle the cases through a group of Christian
arbitrators but the offer was refused.

"We live in a world where lawsuits are filed for everything and anything in
any way, shape or form," he said.

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