As one of the most notorious figures of the '80s, televangelist Jim Bakker re-emerged
from a headline-making scandal to stir the pot with multiple other controversies over
the next few decades.
This is the shady side of Jim Bakker.
Back in the late 1970's long before fellow televangelist Joel Osteen founded his megachurch
— Jim Bakker and then-wife Tammy Faye Bakker were traveling Pentecostal preachers who created
an evangelical puppet show for a Minnesota TV station.
Their modest production caught the eye of popular televangelist Pat Robertson and, as
Christianity Today reported, he helped launch their own talk show, The PTL Club.
An acronym for "Praise the Lord," The PTL Club was compared by some to The Tonight Show,
but for Christian audiences.
As the series' popularity grew, so did viewer donations.
The show's former security chief, Don Hardister, recalled to Christianity Today,
"We had a cash office and at times there was certainly more money in than [...] I could
imagine.
People would send us mink coats, diamond rings, deeds.
I mean, we got all sorts of donations."
For their part, the Bakkers didn't necessarily try to conceal their newfound wealth.
By the consumeristic 1980's, their purchases rivaled those of the Trump family, with The
Los Angeles Times reporting on, quote, "gold-plated swan-shaped bathroom fixtures" and "an air-conditioned
dog house."
"And I said 'Oh God'...you know I couldn't figure out if I wanted a swimming pool or
a lake.
But I knew we'd never had either and I wanted one, please Lord!"
Suddenly swimming in cash in 1978, Jim Bakker saw an opportunity to rake in even more dough
with a faith-based theme park, and opened Heritage USA nearby Charlotte, N.C.
As Religion & Politics recalled, the project amounted to a 2,300 acre-sized, Christian
version of Disneyland.
10 times larger than Walt Disney's original park, Heritage USA boasted attractions like
the childhood home of evangelist Billy Graham, a glitzy Vegas-style dramatization of the
life and death of Jesus Christ, and a $12-million water park.
There was also a campground, hotels, and even condos.
To fund construction, the Bakkers ended up selling timeshares or, in The PTL Club lingo,
"Lifetime Partnerships", costing $1000 each.
Lifetime Partnerships offered fans a few nights' stay at the park each year.
At the time, critics joked that PTL actually stood for "Pass the Loot."
But what the Bakkers' followers didn't know was that more Partnerships had been sold than
could actually be accommodated.
Reporter Mark Becker told ABC News,
"Problem is, there were way too many people giving $1,000, not nearly enough hotel rooms."
He went on to reveal that the Bakkers had sold more than 66,000 Partnerships...for a
hotel with only 500 rooms.
Yikes!
"4 days and 3 nights, every year, for the rest of your life."
In 1987, reports emerged surrounding an intimate encounter Jim Bakker admittedly had with church
secretary Jessica Hahn, who was 21 at the time of the incident, seven years earlier.
Washington Post uncovered evidence that Bakker, who was 20 years Hahn's senior, spent about
$265,000 in hush money to buy her silence.
She was reportedly even forced to sign a confession admitting it was she not Bakker who was the
aggressor.
John Stewart, Hahn's attorney in the federal court case that followed, said:
"That was essentially the straw that broke the camel's back.
She didn't want to live a lie."
The media outlet detailed how Hahn eventually went public, telling her side of the story
in a blockbuster interview with Playboy and then testifying before a federal grand jury.
According to her account, she was lured to Bakker's hotel room by evangelist John Wesley
Fletcher, who reportedly told her, quote, "You're going to do something tremendous for
God."
Author John Wigger later told ABC News that Hahn's description of the encounter sounded
like it happened without her consent.
Jessica Hahn's hush money claim captured the attention of federal investigators, leading
the IRS to poke around into Jim Bakker's finances in 1987.
They uncovered an incredible trove of questionable deductions, reported The Los Angeles Times,
which ranged,
"... from a $592,000 oceanfront condominium in Palm Beach, Fla., to $67,000 in women's
clothes and an $800 Gucci briefcase."
IRS investigators also questioned a Hawaiian vacation taken by the Bakkers, which included
deductions like, quote "a $350-a-night hotel suite... a $120 Gucci pen, a $74 toilet kit
and a $70 address book."
Meanwhile, that Florida condo was purchased by the ministry for $390,000 in 1982, with
an added $202,000 spent for furniture.
All told, the IRS called into question more than $1.3 million worth of improper deductions.
If you ask Jim Bakker, his adulterous encounter with then-21-year-old Jessica Hahn was nothing
but a setup.
According to The Charlotte Observer, Bakker alleged that he'd been
"wickedly manipulated by treacherous former friends [who] conspired to betray [him]."
But as the scandal caught fire, the disgraced televangelist stepped down from PTL, handing
over control to Reverend Jerry Falwell.
While Bakker saw his resignation as a temporary measure to keep him out of the spotlight until
the scandal blew over, things didn't turn out that way.
The Washington Post reports that Falwell dug into the ministry's finances and was shocked
by what he supposedly found.
He claimed of the financial discrepancies, quote, "We don't know the depth of the problems."
Fearing there would be, quote, "staggering" revelations to come, Falwell confirmed that
$265,000 in hush money was indeed given to Jessica Hahn, paid out of church funds.
In light of this new information, Falwell took permanent control of PTL and removed
Bakker from his own ministry, barring him from ever returning.
A shocked Tammy Faye Bakker told The Post,
"We don't know what we're going to do with our lives.
Jim's almost numb."
Things were about to get even worse for Jim Bakker in the late '80s.
As The Washington Post reported, Bakker was indicted by a federal grand jury on 24 charges
of mail fraud, wire fraud, and conspiring to defraud the public in 1988, following a
15-month investigation.
"The more you give to the church, the richer you'll become.
God bless you, praise the Lord."
Also charged in the indictment was former PTL Executive Vice President Richard W. Dortch.
Meanwhile, a separate indictment charged Bakker's former special assistant, David A. Taggart,
and his brother, James H. Taggart, who was described as an interior designer for the
ministry.
Each was charged with 11 counts of tax evasion and conspiracy to impede the IRS.
In its indictment, the grand jury accused Bakker and Dortch of conspiring to fund their,
quote, "lavish and extravagant lifestyles".
Stating that the case, quote, "has nothing to do with religion," the chief of the Justice
Department's fraud section, William E. Hendricks the Third, told The Post that it was rather
about, quote, "the fraudulent sale of spaces in hotels and other lodging."
In 1989, The Charlotte Observer reported that Jim Bakker was found guilty of all 24 counts
of fraud.
According to The Los Angeles Times, the disgraced televangelist received a sentence of 45 years
in a federal prison, eligible for parole after 10 years.
The sentencing memo requested that Bakker be ordered to pay restitution, with unsettled
claims adding up to about $100 million.
He was ultimately fined $500,000.
Bakker told the judge ahead of his sentencing,
"I'm deeply sorry for those I have hurt.
I have sinned.
But never in my life did I intend to defraud."
As stiff as the sentence was, Jessica Hahn still felt it wasn't severe enough, saying
to The Los Angeles Times,
"In my opinion, I still feel like it won't add up to the years that people worked to
save up money to give to PTL."
While Jim Bakker was serving his time, his lawyer successfully waged a campaign to reduce
his sentence to 18 years in 1991, reported The Los Angeles Times.
Bakker said at the time,
"I ask all that I have hurt to please forgive me.
I have asked heavenly God to please forgive me and now I ask this court for human forgiveness."
One person who wasn't feeling so forgiving, however, was the televangelist's wife, Tammy
Faye Bakker.
Eleven months after her husband's initial sentencing, she issued a statement to People:
"I AM EXPERIENCING MANY EMOTIONS as I write to you today.
Great sadness, fear of your rejection, and relief that I am able to be totally honest
with you.
I do not expect your understanding, but please try not to react cruelly.
Jim and I are getting a divorce."
On Mar. 14, 1992, the Bakkers were officially divorced.Tammy Faye was granted full custody
of their then-16-year-old son, - future “liberal preacher” Jay Bakker.
According to The New York Times, Jim Bakker was released from prison in 1994 and placed
on parole after serving just about five years of his 18-year sentence.
Having lost his ministry, his wife, and his reputation, Bakker decided to write a book.
Two years later, he released I Was Wrong: The Untold Story of the Shocking Journey from
PTL Power to Prison and Beyond.
For Bakker, it seemed the book represented a dual opportunity: a chance for damage control
and a quick profit.
He claimed to have atoned for his many sins, alleging that prison had given him time to
contemplate the error of his ways.
Money, he said, had corrupted his soul.
Bakker wrote that he became physically nauseated while studying The Bible behind bars, when
he realized that the prosperity gospel he'd been preaching was actually, quote, "contradicting
Christ."
The book, ABC News later noted, also saw Bakker insisting that his encounter with Jessica
Hahn was consensual, despite her insistence that it was anything but.
According to The Jim Bakker Show's website, Bakker had been doing, quote, "inner-city
outreach" at a Los Angeles church in 1998 when he met fellow minister Lori Graham.
They got married less than two months later, after which Graham, who took Bakker's last
name, told The Charlotte Observer the couple was initially broke.
In the early 2000s, Bakker and his new wife launched The Jim Bakker Show.
Originally broadcasting from a converted Branson, Missouri restaurant, Bakker launched a new
ministry, The Morningside Church, where local members and viewers alike were invited to
donate online.
As Bakker rebuilt his brand, Lori told The Charlotte Observer,
"People are smart enough to know he went to prison for a crime he didn't commit."
"I'm not going to let people turn me back.
I'm not going to let...you can make fun of me, that's OK.
That's your problem, that’s not mine."
The Charlotte Observer reported that the Bakkers had moved their modest operation in Branson
to the small Missouri town of Blue Eye in 2008 but a major expansion was underway.
Millionaire Jerry Crawford bankrolled the Bakkers, allegedly paying $17 million to buy
800 acres of land, as well as for the construction of the Morningside Church, from which The
Jim Bakker Show would broadcast.
The ambitious project, in addition to the main building, also included 100 condos.
That's right: condos.
Sound familiar?
According to The Jim Bakker Show's website, this new venture Morningside USA wasn't just
a worship center, but also included shopping facilities, a camping and RV park, restaurants,
hotels, and cottages.
Also onsite was the Morningside School of Media, presumably set up to train the next
generation of televangelists.
With his new TV show came a new shtick:
"Judgment is coming...it's coming…"
Jim Bakker went from telling his followers that God wanted them to be wealthy to sharing
dire warnings that humanity must prepare for the looming apocalypse.
The Charlotte Observer reported in 2018 that his new message was, quote: "We are in the
final days."
Of course, Bakker offered a solution: buckets of freeze-dried food and survival gear.
As The Daily Mail reported six years earlier, these products ranged from generators and
vitamins to a, quote, "Silver Solution" enema kit.
The items Bakker pushed the hardest, however, were his food buckets.
One of these included 60 freeze-dried meals, with dishes like black bean burgers and buttermilk
pancakes all for the not-so-low price of $2,275.
While the CDC has instructed that one of the best lines of defense against coronavirus
is washing your hands, Jim Bakker made headlines when he offered another remedy.
According to CBS News, The Jim Bakker Show's website offered a pseudo-scientific product
called "Silver Solution" sold in four 4-ounce bottles for $80.
This product sold in February 2020 was promised to diagnose and even cure COVID-19.
Naturally, the FDA caught wind of this phony coronavirus treatment and sent a letter warning
that these unproven claims were in violation of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.
After receiving the FDA's notice, Bakker and Morningside Church Productions were sued by
the state of Missouri for being in violation of the Missouri Merchandising Practices Act.
The lawsuit also pointed out that there is, quote, "no vaccine, pill, potion or other
product available" to treat the virus . Bakker's not the only celeb to dish out unhelpful advice
amid the coronavirus pandemic, but he at least heeded the FDA's warning to take the liquid
silver solution off his website.
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