BOB ABERNETHY: Like their colleagues in the church pulpit, ministers who preach the gospel on television give hope and comfort to millions of people every week. But in the 1980s, a few television preachers were exposed for practices that were making them rich at the expense of disillusioned viewers. Investigators accused the so-called televangelists of preying on the vulnerable and the desperate by promising that God would cure their illnesses or make them wealthy if they would send in large donations to the TV ministry. The most controversial televangelists were discredited and went off the air, and now several of them are back, delivering much the same message, but to a different audience. Lucky Severson reports.

LUCKY SEVERSON: Some critics call it the gospel of greed.

Mr. ROBERT TILTON: God has anointed me to preach the gospel to the world: salvation, healing, and prosperity.

SEVERSON: Salvation by satellite.

Mr. DAN STEWART: And to help you also, I'm gonna send you the book, SEND NOW PROSPERITY.

SEVERSON: Promised miracles of money.

Mr. PETER PAPPOV: God Almighty guarantees you a house ...

SEVERSON: The message hasn't changed, but the location of the pulpit has. Robert Tilton and a handful of other TV ministers, discredited for preaching and promising prosperity, have now repackaged themselves for African-American audiences. They're buying time on the Black Entertainment Television network.

Mr. OLE ANTHONY (Trinity Foundation): And they say, "Well, it's because that's where the need is." No, it's not. It's that's where the people who are desperate are, who will believe this garbage that they're putting on in the name of God.

SEVERSON: Television watchdog and licensed private investigator Ole Anthony has been closely monitoring TV evangelists for 10 years. Through his nonprofit Trinity Foundation, Anthony maintains daily logs of what he considers to be outrageous claims and keeps files on the mail-out come-ons of more than 130 TV preachers.

Mr. ANTHONY: The saddest thing we see is when people watch these preproduced testimonials, and they give money and they think they're healed, and they stop taking their medicine.

SEVERSON: And you've seen that?

Mr. ANTHONY: Oh, yeah, we ...

SEVERSON: It happened to the mother of Dallas elementary school teacher Vickie Crenshaw.

Ms. VICKIE CRENSHAW: She felt like you could trust someone who said that they were a minister of God.

SEVERSON: Crenshaw's mother had colon cancer, and according to her daughter, was convinced by Tilton in his broadcast that she would receive a miracle.

And she was watching television and there was Robert Tilton. And he convinced her that if she sent him money, he could get her healed?

Ms. CRENSHAW: Robert Tilton tells his viewers that they must send in a seed of faith to show that they do have the faith for their miracle, and that means money.

SEVERSON: And you would try to get her to go to a doctor, and she'd say, "No, I'm gonna be healed by Robert Tilton."

Ms. CRENSHAW: She did not seek medical care after that point because she felt like it would be a breach of faith, that she would not receive the miracle.

By the time I got my mother to a doctor, to a medical doctor, her cancer had metastasized and there was no hope, and then she passed away.

Mr. TILTON: God's speaking to your heart to make a $1,000 vow of faith; maybe it's $500, maybe it's $100, I don't know, but it's got to take faith or it doesn't please God.

SEVERSON: Ole Anthony started looking into unscrupulous televangelists during his work with the homeless. Many homeless people showed up on Anthony's doorstep after giving their last dollar to television preachers, only to be turned away when they asked those preachers for help.

Mr. ANTHONY: We did a -- an in-depth study of a -- of a -- of an evangelist in Southern California whose take was about $12 million a year. And he gave $686 to charity for charitable purposes.