Falwell Optimistic That PTL Will Survive--With Forgiveness by IRS

PTL Chairman Jerry Falwell says he is optimistic that the revamped television network and resort founded by the fallen Jim Bakker will be able to survive its checkered past.

“My opinion is that Uncle Sam is going to say, ‘You are forgiven. Go, and sin no more,’ ” Falwell said.

“Unless they want us out of business,” Falwell added in an interview during a recent visit to California. “They’re fully aware that they hold us in their hands.”

Even as a federal grand jury is about to convene Monday in Charlotte, N.C., and look into PTL matters, Falwell has been pursuing credibility for the organization on several fronts:

- He and other PTL officials have outlined in recent days a plan they have presented to a federal bankruptcy court to create a profit-making corporation that would pay taxes on the hotel, water park and other commercial elements of Heritage USA in Fort Mill, S.C. Other activities more readily seen as religious would remain in a separate, nonprofit corporation, exempt from taxes.

- The “PTL lifetime partners,” to whom Bakker apparently promised three free nights a year at the park’s hotel for a one-time $1,000 contribution and who now number more than can be accommodated, will be offered instead discounts on lodging at the hotel and a chance to own stock in the proposed for-profit corporation, PTL officials said.

- After raising more than the monthly budget of $4.5 million in July--but only after some special pleading on PTL’s talk show--Falwell said donations are strong again in August, “which might indicate we’re back on course.” The 225-pound Falwell has also committed himself to a plunge down one of PTL’s longest water slides, fully clothed, if 1,000 viewers pledge $1,000 each by Aug. 31 toward the evangelistic organization’s debt.

- In the latest cost-trimming measures at PTL affecting Jim Bakker’s relatives, his octogenarian parents this week agreed to a deep salary cut in their job as “greeters” at the Heritage Grand Hotel, and a Bakker cousin was told his salary of $17,000 was ended and he is to leave Kevin’s House--the home for handicapped children that he maintained for his adopted son and that is now being closed. The home fails to meet fire codes for housing handicapped children, officials said. Bakker turned over PTL to Falwell in March amid an unfolding sex-and-money scandal; a sister of Bakker was fired in May and a brother in June.

- Among the PTL employees fired at the end of last month, Falwell said, was a man who told Time magazine he had a two-year homosexual relationship with Bakker until last November. Bakker has denied that he is a homosexual or has committed homosexual acts; Falwell says he has sworn statements from people who have told him of homosexual advances or encounters with Bakker.

In his interview with The Times, Falwell said ex-Bakker bodyguard Don Hardister, now working for the new PTL, questioned several employees after the Time article appeared, allegedly found who the employee was and dismissed him. Falwell said the dismissed worker was “not a prominent individual by any means.”

In San Francisco late last week for a couple of speaking engagements, Falwell saw but did not actually meet attorney Melvin Belli, who was hired by Bakker purportedly to try to wrest control of PTL from Falwell. Belli listened to Falwell’s talk to the Commonwealth Club, but did not ask a question.

Exchanged Some Barbs

Instead, the two exchanged gentle barbs at separate press conferences. Calling Belli “an outstanding counselor,” Falwell said, “I’m sure I’ll meet him in the courtroom somewhere.” To this point, Falwell said he thought Belli’s interest in Bakker was mostly “enjoying the news coverage” because the San Francisco lawyer had not asked to see any PTL records. The Baptist minister said he would like to meet the oft-married trial lawyer to invite him to a marriage seminar and to teach him how to pronounce Falwell’s name.

Belli, referring to “Foul-well,” told reporters: “I just don’t like a man who is glib and so lacking in sentiment and human feelings and sincerity as this able man is.” Belli said he regards himself as religious in spite of his four divorces. “One practice landing, so I guess it was five,” Belli said.

But in spelling out PTL’s biggest worries, Falwell indicated that Belli is the least of them. “Mr. Belli is not the major part of our problem. . . . They are economics and legalities.”

Could Be Major

As an example, Falwell said, “If the Internal Revenue Service comes in and says that you owe taxes from day one until the day you guys took over and restructured it, we have a major problem that involves . . . millions of dollars.”

Falwell said the new board last June filed for protection under Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings to protect itself from potential claims by, among others, some lifetime partners who said they owned time-shares in the park’s hotel.

“If these lifetime partnerships are ruled to be time-shares, then PTL did $167 million worth of commercial business on which they would owe 48% taxes,” Falwell said. That tax debt, as well as the liability to make good to these owners or creditors, “would be a death knell to the ministry,” he said.

The present PTL board--five businessmen and four ministers--has a problem with the past and whether federal agencies will hold them liable.

“My optimism tells me that we are going to pass these hurdles unscathed,” he said.

Assorted Inquiries

Postal investigators, the Internal Revenue Service and the Justice Department have conducted inquiries at PTL. Though he claimed no special knowledge, Falwell suggested that federal investigators will merge their efforts for the grand jury convening next week.

“My guess is that about the first of the year, if there are to be indictments, they will begin falling then,” he said.

It is premature, he said, to say how long he will continue to divide his time between PTL and his own church, his TV ministry and Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va. (Though he often appears on the weekday PTL talk show, Falwell has also managed since May to tape a weekday, hourlong talk show for his own Liberty Television Network.)

“Any comment on my part destabilizes everything,” he said. “If I were to make the statement that I was leaving Jan. 1, there wouldn’t be anything there Jan. 1 because everybody else would bail out.”