The Nation - News from May 25, 1988

A prostitute claims television evangelist Jimmy Swaggart engaged in sexual intercourse with her once, according to Penthouse magazine. The article in the July issue is the first report on Swaggart’s alleged sexual encounters to say that he engaged in sexual intercourse. In previous interviews, the prostitute, Debra Murphree, has said Swaggart paid her to perform lewd acts while he watched. The Penthouse interview is accompanied by explicit photos in which Murphree demonstrates the acts she said Swaggart asked her to perform. She said she had at least 20 encounters with him during a one-year period. The reported meetings with Murphree led to Swaggart’s defrocking by the Assemblies of God church. Swaggart stopped preaching for three months but returned to the pulpit Sunday without his denomination credentials. Swaggart has admitted only that he suffered a “moral failure.” Murphree said she refused Swaggart’s request that she have her 9-year-old daughter watch sex acts.