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On June 25th, Matthew Crouch presented for his scheduled deposition. The thrust of his responses to questions
in deposition was that he did not know (or admit to know) very much. Seems his father makes most all the decisions
over there, too. He was more than a little confused over dates, people involved, even the existance of any contracts
for services used to produce the film, costs, revenue, etc., etc. He did know that his father furnished the money to fund the script writing and to make the movie.
In discussing the finances and the returns from the movie, Matt was deliberately vague, but used the same number $1.2 MM of reimbursement to TBN that everyone in the TBN camp seemed to really have down pat.
COMMENTARY
HOW? Did Matthew make the Omega Code movie and reap personal rewards while TBN later in
deposition testimony report a loss on the investment?
If you followed the copyright infringment lawsuit and read between the lines in all the testimony you can figure out
that Paul Crouch (Executive Producer) advanced +/- $7.2 millions of TBN donor money (where Paul Crouch is CEO). Paul
Crouch, Executive Producer, was "only able to pay $1.2 million back to TBN, so the balance was forgiven by the funder,
TBN, you guessed it, again Paul Crouch. All the decisions were made by Paul Crouch. In the midst of the very public
hype about the success of the movie, the "top grossing independent film of 1999", and with money rolling in, but not documented
as repaid to TBN, Matthew (the public perception is that he bought 50% interest in Hanna-Barbera Studios, the truth is
he is only renting the space) but did buy a $1.2 MM home in Hollywood Hills, a villa in Rome and a Bentley
for $240,000. He also formed Gen8, a for-profit company, then took it public to raise more money, moved the corporation to Delaware where the documents identifying
stockholders, directors, etc., are sealed from prying eyes. All of this off the money "funded" to TBN Films for the production of Paul's "Movies", then paid to Matt's company, in
a round-robin series of "moving target" un-budgeted and largely un-documented transactions; it appears that Matthew benefited
substantially. The total exceeds $40 MM of donor funds, that have gone to Matt in 10 years. Matt's company is going broke
in spite of regular infusions of "Daddy's" money. Wonder why they could not pay back the "loan"?
All this is hardly sound or wise use of "donor funds" no matter which "account" they were taken from. Of course,
if you consider the tens of millions of TBN's "unreported extra donor" income generated by the film, not admissable in court,
nor records discoverable as evidence, concealed from the financial expert who examined the books, but mentioned in Matt's
letter, it seems there was reason enough not to care about the money.
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