Jim Bakker

Public-record biography

James Orsen Bakker was born in Muskegon, Michigan on 2 January 1940. He attended North Central Bible College in Minneapolis, where he met Tammy Faye LaValley, whom he married in 1961. The Bakkers entered Pentecostal televangelism in the 1960s through Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network and, in 1972, joined Paul Crouch in founding the Trinity Broadcasting Network.

In 1974 Bakker founded the PTL Satellite Network (later The Inspirational Network) in Charlotte, North Carolina. PTL became, by the mid-1980s, one of the largest American religious broadcasters, with revenues approaching $130 million annually, a 2,300-acre theme-park-and-resort complex (Heritage USA), and a household audience in the millions.

The 1987 disclosure and federal prosecution

In March 1987, the Charlotte Observer disclosed a $279,000 payment made by PTL to Jessica Hahn in connection with a 1980 incident involving Bakker. Bakker resigned from PTL the same month. The subsequent federal investigation established that PTL had sold approximately 153,000 "lifetime partnerships" in the Heritage Grand Hotel and related facilities far in excess of the capacity to accommodate them; that the proceeds had been commingled with general operating funds; and that, between 1983 and 1987, Bakker personally received $3,783,808 in salaries, bonuses, and retirement-fund contributions from PTL.

In October 1989, a federal jury convicted Bakker on 24 counts of mail fraud, wire fraud, and conspiracy. He was sentenced to 45 years in federal prison. The Fourth Circuit affirmed the convictions in 1991 (United States v. Bakker, 925 F.2d 728) while vacating the sentence on the ground that the trial court had improperly considered Bakker's religious beliefs at sentencing. On remand, he was resentenced to eighteen years; he was paroled in 1994 after serving approximately five years.

Subsequent activity

Bakker has continued in religious broadcasting since his release, presently through The Jim Bakker Show. He has not faced subsequent federal criminal prosecution. He has been the subject of state regulatory action: in March 2020, the Missouri attorney general filed a civil consumer-protection action against Bakker and his production company, Morningside Church Productions, concerning Silver Solution products sold on his programme after on-air segments referenced their potential efficacy against COVID-19. The action was resolved by consent judgment on 23 June 2021, signed by Associate Circuit Judge Alan Blankenship, under which Bakker and Morningside agreed to pay $156,000 — $50,000 in civil penalties and $115,000 in restitution to purchasers — and to cease selling the product. The consent judgment recites that the defendants deny any wrongdoing.

Sources

• United States v. Bakker, 925 F.2d 728 (4th Cir. 1991).
• Charlotte Observer, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative series on PTL, 1987.
• Charles E. Shepard, Forgiven: The Rise and Fall of Jim Bakker and the PTL Ministry (Atlantic Monthly Press, 1989).
• State of Missouri v. Morningside Church Productions, Circuit Court of Cole County, Missouri, 2020–2021.