New PTL Chiefs OK Audit, Continued Pay for Bakker

The new leaders of the embattled PTL ministry voted today to have the ministry’s accounts audited and said that Jim Bakker, whose extramarital sexual encounter seven years ago led to his resignation from the group’s presidency last week, will continue to be paid but will never get the job back.

The new PTL board of directors also ratified the selection of Richard Dortch as its new president, board Chairman Jerry Falwell said at a news conference after the meeting.

Bakker and his wife, Tammy Faye, will be paid for the time being out of “compassion, obligation, responsibility, fairness, a host of other things. This ministry would not be here if not for Jim and Tammy Bakker,” Falwell said.

Also today, a North Carolina newspaper reported that PTL lawyers had earlier agreed to pay $265,000 to the woman involved in the affair and her representatives.

The Charlotte Observer said a $150,000 fund was set up from which Jessica Hahn received monthly payments of $800 to $1,200, in addition to a $115,000 payment to her representatives in February, 1985.

Hahn was to get the entire $150,000 after 20 years if she did not sue Bakker or reveal the liaison, unidentified sources told the newspaper.

The $150,000 was deposited in the Bank of Los Angeles, the newspaper said, citing legal documents. The documents did not reveal the source of the money, the report said.

The paper said the fund is based on a trust arrangement that was part of an agreement reached after meetings involving Dortch, PTL’s attorneys and Hahn’s representative.

A retired California Superior Court judge, Charles Woodmansee, acted as mediator, the newspaper said.