Jim Bakker: Encyclopedia II - Jim Bakker - Scandals

Jim Bakker - Scandals

On March 19, 1987, following threats of the revelation of the payoff to former secretary Jessica Hahn, whom Bakker's staff members had paid $265,000 to keep secret her sexual services to him, Bakker resigned from the PTL. Jerry Falwell called Bakker a liar, embezzler, sexual deviate, and "the greatest scab and cancer on the face of Christianity in two thousand years of church history." Falwell was rumored to be using the situation to gain control of a leading broadcast competitor. Bakker's absence resulted in a fierce fight for control of The PTL Network among several other prominent televangelists, which Falwell won. Upon taking over, Falwell fired Bakker's entire staff, and he provided much of the damning information presented at Bakker's later fraud trial. Under Falwell's leadership, the PTL Network went bankrupt within a short time and was liquidated at a deep discount.

Financial irregularities in the PTL organization led to another scandal. From 1984 to 1987, Bakker and his PTL associates had sold "lifetime memberships" for $1,000 or more that entitled buyers to a three-night stay annually at a luxury hotel at Heritage USA. According to the prosecution at Bakker's later fraud trial, tens of thousands of memberships had been sold, but only one 500-room hotel was ever completed. Bakker sold more "exclusive" partnerships than could be accommodated, while raising more than twice the money needed to build the actual hotel. A good deal of the money went into Heritage USA's operating expenses, and Bakker kept $3,700,000 for himself. Bakker, who apparently made all of the financial decisions for the PTL organization, kept two sets of books to conceal the accounting irregularities. Reporters from the newspaper The Charlotte Observer, led by Charles Shepard, discovered and exposed the financial wrongdoings.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Scandals", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki