NEWARK, Texas — Here in the gentle hills of north Texas, televangelist Kenneth Copeland has built a religious empire teaching that God wants his followers to prosper.

Over the years, a circle of Copeland's relatives and friends have done just that, The Associated Press has found. They include the brother-in-law with a lucrative deal to broker Copeland's TV time, the son who acquired church-owned land for his ranching business and saw it more than quadruple in value, and board members who together have been paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for speaking at church events.

Church officials say no one improperly benefits through ties to Copeland's vast evangelical ministry, which claims more than 600,000 subscribers in 134 countries to its flagship Believer's Voice of Victory magazine. The board of directors signs off on important matters, they say. Yet church bylaws give Copeland veto power over board decisions.

While Copeland insists that his ministry complies with the law, independent tax experts who reviewed information obtained by the AP through interviews, church documents and public records have their doubts. The web of companies and non-profits tied to the televangelist calls the ministry's integrity into question, they say.

"There are far too many relatives here," said Frances Hill, a University of Miami law professor who specializes in nonprofit tax law. "There's too much money sloshing around and too much of it sloshing around with people with overlapping affiliations and allegiances by either blood or friendship or just ties over the years. There are red flags all over these relationships."

Copeland, 71, is a pioneer of the prosperity gospel, which holds that believers are destined to flourish spiritually, physically and financially — and share the wealth with others.

His ministry's 1,500-acre campus, behind an iron gate a half-hour drive from Forth Worth, is testament to his success. It includes a church, a private airstrip, a hangar for the ministry's $17.5 million jet and other aircraft, and a $6 million church-owned lakefront mansion.

Already a well-known figure, Copeland has come under greater scrutiny in recent months. He is one target of a Senate Finance Committee investigation into allegations of questionable spending and lax financial accountability at six large televangelist organizations that preach health-and-wealth theology.

All have denied wrongdoing. But Copeland has fought back the hardest, refusing to answer most questions from the inquiry's architect, Republican Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa.

Copeland's church also has invited an Internal Revenue Service audit, which would keep information private, and has launched a sophisticated Web site, Believers Stand United, to "help set the record straight."

The Senate committee didn't set out to determine whether Copeland or the others broke the law, although it could provide information to the Internal Revenue Service if something seems flagrantly wrong, a committee aide said. The main goal, Grassley has said, is to figure out whether existing tax laws governing churches are adequate, which could carry sweeping implications for all religious organizations.

The committee could subpoena Copeland if he remains uncooperative. Neither he nor John Copeland, his son and the ministry's chief executive officer, responded to interview requests.

But Lawrence Swicegood, spokesman for Kenneth Copeland Ministries, said in written responses to questions that no Copeland family members receive improper benefits through their ties to the church. All revenue from the church's business interests — including an oil and natural gas company it owns — go into the church, he said.

He said that Copeland has never exercised his veto power over board decisions, a provision meant for emergency use. Even so, Swicegood said, the board is scheduled to meet in August to vote on taking away that ability.

Copeland was greatly influenced by Tulsa prosperity preacher Kenneth Hagin, locking himself in the garage with Hagin's tapes for seven days before moving back to Texas to start his ministry in the late 1960s.

Now a 500-employee operation with a budget in the tens of millions of dollars, his ministry has won supporters worldwide through crusades and conferences, prayer request network, disaster relief work, magazines and TV programs.

Kenneth Copeland Ministries is organized under the tax code as a church, so it gets a layer of privacy not afforded large secular and religious nonprofit groups that must disclose budgets and salaries. Pastors' pay must be "reasonable" under the federal tax code, a term that gives churches wide latitude.

Copeland's current salary is not made public by his ministry. However, the church disclosed in a property-tax exemption application that his wages were $364,577 in 1995; his wife, Gloria, earned $292,593. It's not clear whether those figures include other earnings, such as special offerings for guest preaching or book royalties. Another 13 Copeland relatives were on the church's payroll that year.

Whatever venture it pursues — whether it's buying TV time, land deals with a church executive or natural gas wells — Kenneth Copeland Ministries cites its 11-member board of directors as an important check on the organization's integrity.

Kenneth Copeland serves as board chairman, and his wife is a board member. Records show other members include or have included fellow televangelists Jesse Duplantis, Mac and Lynne Hammond, and Jerry and Carolyn Savelle; Oklahoma architect Loyal Furry; retired Texas pastor Harold Nichols; and Arkansas businessman John Best.

Several board members either declined comment, did not respond to interview requests or could not be located. The church has emphasized that board members act in the church's best interest.

Some board members, however, receive a perk that experts say undermines their independence. While board members don't get salaries, some who are ministers get paid for speaking at church events through offerings and honorariums, Swicegood confirmed.

The sums involved are usually kept secret. But in seeking tax exemption for its aircraft fleet in the late 1990s, the church revealed that it paid board members a total of $87,000 in "cash contributions" and almost $1 million in honorariums and "benefit purposes" in 1996 and '97.

Marilyn Phelan, a Texas Tech University law professor and author on nonprofit law, said the practice could pose problems in an IRS audit. Both the IRS and Texas state law prohibit benefits beyond reasonable compensation for insiders, including board members, she said.

As the Senate Finance Committee considers its next step, Copeland is not backing down. His ministry is portraying the inquiry as an attack on religious liberty.