Court Rules Hank Hanegraaff Culpable Of ” ˜SLAPP”
By: Bill Alnor
Frivolous Litigation
Violations Against Other Evangelical Christians Amidst Massive Legal Costs & Settlements
“Why would anyone financially support Hank’s CRI ministry so he can sue hire lawyers to other believers who simply expose his unethical fund raising”?
(Alnor April 9 statement Re: Hanegraaff/CRI v. Alnor)
April 9, 2007 Statement from William M. Alnor, Ph.D.concerning Hank Hanegraaff and the Christian Research Institute v. William Alnor. ‚ ‚ (Defamation Action):
The text of the recent ruling concerning my victory in Hank Hanegraaff and the Christian Research Institute v. William Alnor has now been placed on line by the nonprofit organization the California Anti-SLAPP
Project.
Besides the obvious fact that Hanegraaff, the so called “Bible Answer Man,” and the Christian Research Institute violated clear scriptural admonition against a Christian taking another believer to law (see I Cor.
6), the California Appeals Court has asserted that the Christian Research Institute broke the law in filing the meritless law suit, which was obviously designed to attempt to shut me up or to try to financially sink
me.
For background on the case please see my article at
http://www.cultlink.com/news/CRIfraud.htm
See also the Religion News Blog piece at
http://www.religionnewsblog.com/17614/hank-hanegraaff-bill-alnor
In addition, as my attorneys have pointed out in court filings, on ^six different occasions^ postal authorities asserted that Hanegraaff/CRI were under investigation for the infamous “the Post Office lost our mail” fundraising appeal. ‚ ‚ An independent investigator also filed a declaration on my behalf giving the name of a postal mail fraud investigator who requested additional information on the case to establish the fact that in addition to Hanegraaff placing the unusual appeal on the Internet, he also physically mailed it out using the U.S. Postal System.
CRI did get a statement from a postal official ^well after my story broke^ that they did not have records at their location of an investigation, but as the court aptly pointed out in the ruling, that letter only referred to the location CRI wrote to ” “ which was not even in the same Southern California physical jurisdiction where postal authorities were hard at work, trying to unravel the problems with Hanegraaff’s fund raising letter and alleged missing mail. ‚ ‚ Was this done on purpose to try to deflect my story and later articles in the Los Angeles Times, Orange Country Register and Associated Press? ‚ ‚ Time will tell.
What law was broken? The Court ruled that Hanegraaff/CRI violated California’s anti-SLAPP legislation that was passed to protect free speech in light of large corporations trying to silence critics by filing frivolous law suits against them. ‚ ‚ These types of unethical legal actions have increasingly become tools by unscrupulous companies loaded with a lot more money than their critics. ‚ ‚ These suits are called Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPP). ‚ ‚ Because of the rise in these types of suits, states throughout the U.S. have been passing laws against them due to the chilling effect they had against the First Amendment right of free speech. California’s bipartisan anti-SLAPP legislation was passed in the early 1990s by the state legislature.
Others have noted over the years that if one takes issue with the goings on at CRI under Hanegraaff’s leadership, CRI has attempted to discredit and punish that person – even when that person has correctly blown the whistle. ‚ ‚ In a case involving former CRI researcher Brad Sparks vs. CRI in the early 1990s, CRI tax documents revealed that CRI had spent almost one half million dollars in attorneys fees and private detectives in trying to bring down Sparks. ‚ ‚ Eventually CRI paid Sparks a $20,000 settlement in the case. This has also been the case with various others in the past, as was reported by “Ministry Watch.” ‚ ‚ See:
http://www.ministrywatch.com/mw2.1/E1_Txt.asp?DocID=1695
The article notes:
“Jen Hubbard is not the first employee of Christian Research Institute (CRI) to blow the whistle on suspected wrongdoing. Nor is she the first to lose her job after launching allegations of skullduggery and shenanigans on the Christian discernment ministry for which she worked. She is just one of six of (of a staff of about 50) CRI employees that have been fired or resigned in the past year or so regarding questions about the financial practices of CRI president Hank Hanegraaff and the CRI board’s management of Hanegraaff, according to Christianity Today magazine.
Additionally, over the past several years, employees Brad Sparks, Craig Nelson, Jerry Kissler, Mark Hoover, Craig Hawkins, Michael Buesing, Perry Robinson, Dennis Green, Anthony Horpel and Rob Bowman are just some of the CRI workers that were fired or forced to resign after they allegedly raised questions about the ethical conduct of Hanegraaff, according to news reports.”
See also the “donor alert” issued against CRI that suggests that people consider not giving any money to CRI. ‚ ‚ It is found at ‚ http://www.ministrywatch.com/mw2.1/pdf/MWDA_CRI_Feb04.pdf
Therefore, CRI has been ordered to pay all of my legal bills, which will soon be submitted to Hanegraaff in the near future (and publicized). ‚ ‚ Thus, some of the offering money given to CRI by unwitting donors will
wind up going to the Ross, Dixon and Bell firm who took my case pro bono. ‚ ‚ I am thankful in particular to Peter Eliasberg, to Kevin Kieffer (who argued the case) and Becki Kieffer, and also to Jenece Solomon from the Ross, Dixon and Bell firm. ‚ ‚ I am thankful to officials at the Pacific Justice Institute and the Christian Legal Society (evangelical Christian legal societies) who advised me behind the scenes with the case. ‚ They were prohibited from taking my case in light of the I Cor. 6 admonition against Christians suing other Christians.
Also, the Los Angeles Daily Journal did an article on the case that has recently been placed on line. ‚ ‚ This is the official newspaper of the Los Angeles Superior Court and the United States Southern District Court.
It is here.
http://tinyurl.com/2l8ln9
There will be much more news coming in the future through various forums concerning the case and its implications. ‚ ‚ I will also be releasing a more complete statement in the near future about the case, which will be publicized in various forums.
I am also thankful for the consistent support from the Christian Community and my fellow apologists over the case. ‚ ‚ As a professor of media law, I never had doubt for a minute that I would prevail in the case quite simply because my story was accurate in the first place and I could prove it.
In light of this case, persistent ethical problems (including financial controversies and plagiarism) surrounding CRI/Hanegraaff, along with CRI’s recent support of the Local Church (See Anton Hein’s article “CRI’s Hank Hanegraaff Supports a Cult of Christianity”
http://www.apologeticsindex.org/375-hank-hanegraaff-support-the-local-church
I believe it is time for there to be a total public boycott of the ministry of CRI, which could include all Christian leaders and writers who support Hanegraaff, the Bible Answer Man Broadcast and the Christian Research Journal, including its contributing writers. ‚ ‚ Please write me if you stand with me in this effort and want to assist.
For more information on other controversies CRI/Hanegraaff has been involved with see:
http://www.apologeticsindex.org/c174.html,
http://www.waltermartin.org/cri.html and
http://www.cultlink.com/ar/cristat.htm
Respectfully,
William M. Alnor, Ph.D.
Publisher The Christian Sentinel www.cultlink.com
Assistant Professor/Director of Journalism
California State University, East Bay
Hayward, California
