A lawsuit filed in Palm Beach Circuit Court against pioneering televangelist Rex Humbard’s foundation claims the foundation wrongly accepted a willed donation of $174,000 from a New York woman.

Humbard’s religious empire broadcast out of Ohio to millions during the ’60s and ’70s before it began to crumble. Humbard then set up ministry offices on a smaller scale in Boca Raton in the mid-’80s.

At issue in the lawsuit is money from the estate of Alice E. Ross of Rochester, N.Y., who bequeathed the money to the Rex Humbard Cathedral of Tomorrow of Akron, Ohio.

By the time the money was disbursed, Humbard’s son, Rex Humbard Jr., had signed away the organization’s interest in the trust. Executors of Ross’ estate were unaware of that and sent the money to one of Humbard’s organizations.

The suit, filed by Rochester attorney Eugene Van Voorhis against Rex Humbard Jr. and three of the family’s corporations, states that Humbard knew or should have known that the foundation had relinquished all rights to the money in 1988.

Humbard’s attorney denied the allegations.

“The will gave money to the Rex Humbard Foundation and that money was used for charitable religious purposes like it should have been,” said attorney Andrew J. Michaels of Wadsworth, Ohio.

In 1976, in conjunction with a Rochester bank, Ross created the Ross Charitable Remainder Trust.

When she died, all income from the trust was to be disbursed to her sister. When her sister died, the money was to be divided among several charities, including Humbard’s Cathedral of Tomorrow.

Ross died in 1987. When her sister died in 1992, the money went into a trust overseen by Van Voorhis.

The suit claims the Cathedral was not entitled to the $174,000 because Humbard in 1988 signed over his interest in the trust to a data management company that the foundation was indebted to for bulk-mailing services.

But when he was executing the will, Van Voorhis was not aware of the arrangement.

He sent two checks totaling $174,000 to the religious organization.

Both payments were endorsed by Rex Humbard Jr., the executive vice president of the foundation, and deposited into a Cathedral account at the Bank of Boynton, the lawsuit claims.

“This is where we decided to file the lawsuit because this is where the money ended up,” said Carla Gettlemen, a Boca Raton attorney representing Van Voorhis.

After the error in payment was discovered, Van Voorhis demanded that the Humbards return it. They refused.

Van Voorhis then personally paid the data management company the money owed, plus interest, for a total of $204,125.

Van Voorhis now wants Humbard to pay him triple that amount, plus interest and attorney fees.

But the Humbard family is also suing. They want Van Voorhis to pay $50,000 for legal fees and $200,000 in punitive damages.

Neither Van Voorhis nor members of the Humbard family would comment.