Laguna Firm Linked to Bakker Is a Bidder to Buy PTL Complex

A Laguna Beach firm said to have close ties to ousted PTL leader Jim Bakker is among three prospective bidders to take over the Christian park and television ministry that fell into bankruptcy last year.

Family Entertainment of America, which did not return calls by The Times Tuesday, first approached the PTL organization three weeks ago to discuss a purchase arrangement, according to Dave West, who identified himself as a PTL spokesman.

“We had never heard of them until they contacted us,” West said Tuesday in a telephone interview from the PTL’s Heritage USA Christian theme park in South Carolina. “They are an organization that has just formed. They have represented to us that they are not involved with Bakker in any way.”

Bakker on Tuesday told United Press International that he favors the offer by Family Entertainment.

“I have been involved enough to know the overview of goals of the corporation,” Bakker said. “I have talked with them about it and they have assured me it will be a full Christian center.”

Bakker did not return telephone calls to his Palm Springs home Tuesday.

But a high-ranking PTL official said Tuesday that at least one Family Entertainment representative, Dale Hill, was a former PTL vice president under Bakker before the televangelist left in March, 1987, in a sex scandal involving revelations by Jessica Hahn.

“As recently as a month ago, Hill was in California and saw Bakker,” the PTL official said. “We are aware of that possible connection.”

A sale of PTL may be close at hand after court-appointed trustee David Clark Monday filed a new reorganization plan with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court, according to wire service accounts and PTL spokesman West. The plan calls for PTL to sell its assests and lease back only what is essential to the Fort Mill, S.C., ministry.

That plan still must be approved by the court, which has scheduled a June 16 hearing.

The value of the PTL property and buildings has been estimated at $160 million, according to a spokesman for former Moral Majority leader Jerry Falwell, who temporarily assumed leadership of PTL when Bakker stepped down.

“From our experience there, that number is in the ballpark,” Falwell spokesman Mark DeMoss said.

DeMoss said that Falwell’s organization first heard of Family Entertainment about two weeks ago and that it was a group formed to represent Bakker and a Wichita, Kan., builder named Roe Messner, who is a close friend of the Bakkers and one of PTL’s largest creditors.

But DeMoss said that Falwell last week met Cary Moody by chance in Washington. Moody, who identified himself as an official with Family Entertainment, discussed buying PTL but absolutely denied any connection with between Family Entertainment and Bakker, DeMoss added.

“They said if they were successful in buying PTL, that Jim Bakker could never come back there,” DeMoss said. “I don’t know what to make of them. If I had to guess, I’d say (Bakker) is involved.”

So far, no group has presented any formal plan or proposal to buy PTL, spokesman West said.

“At this point, we’re simply providing information to interested parties,” he said.

PTL officials have frowned on the Family Entertainment overtures and favor a purchase bid by George Shinn, a sports entrepreneur from Charlotte, N.C., West said.

The other offer under discussion is from an unidentified Christian group from Tulsa, Okla., which West said is not affiliated with any ministry there.

“They have not authorized us to use their name,” West said. “They have put together a finance plan without changing the character of the lodging and recreational facilities here.”

Shinn is popular with PTL officials because he, too, is a Christian and a successful businessman, West said.

But ultimately, the judge will have to decide, West pointed out.

PTL, founded by Bakker in 1974, has been under protection of Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code since June, 1987.