Ex-Worker Accusing TBN Pastor Says He Had Sex to Keep His Job

Enoch Lonnie Ford, 41, said he was going public with his story because he believes TBN officials breached a confidentiality agreement that was part of a 1998 settlement that provided the payment to him. Network officials broke the agreement, he contends, by issuing a statement last week responding to a news account of the ministry's legal effort to silence him. TBN's statement described the circumstances of the settlement and highlighted Ford's criminal background.

Crouch, 70, is president and popular on-air personality of Orange County-based TBN, the world's largest religious broadcaster.

Ministry officials have flatly denied Ford's allegations, which are detailed in an unpublished memoir that is now sealed in court files by a judge's order.

"I'll take a lie-detector test on national TV," Ford said in a telephone interview Monday. "Paul Crouch needs to be exposed, and the truth needs to get out."

Ministry attorneys went to Orange County Superior Court on Tuesday in an unsuccessful attempt to stop publication of this story, claiming that a Times reporter "aided and abetted" Ford in violating an April 2003 court order that barred him from discussing his allegations. Judge John M. Watson declined to issue a restraining order against The Times but suggested Ford could later face a contempt-of-court hearing.

TBN issued the news release that angered Ford after a Sept. 12 article in The Times reported that the nonprofit organization has waged a legal battle to keep the alleged 1996 sexual encounter secret. TBN said the statement didn't break the confidentiality agreement because it only responded to issues raised by the article.

In their statement, ministry officials said Ford was reviving his allegations, despite the 1998 settlement, to extract more money from Crouch. They also detailed Ford's felony convictions in the 1990s for drug possession and engaging in sex with a 17-year-old boy.

Ford responded angrily to the ministry's statement. "There were times that I didn't make the right decisions," he said. "This is all true. But this man is using my mistakes to get away with this."