Nation : Sentence Reduced for Dortch, Bakker’s Right-Hand Man at PTL
A federal judge today reduced the prison sentence of Richard Dortch, once the right-hand man to Jim Bakker in the PTL Ministry, from eight years to 30 months.
Dortch reported to the no-bars country club prison housing some of the nation’s former elite at Eglin Air Force Base on Feb. 2 to begin serving his sentence for fraud and returned to court a week and a half ago to ask Potter to reduce his sentence under Rule 35 of the Federal Code. This morning, U.S. District Judge Robert D. Potter complied.
Dortch had been charged with the same 24 counts of fraud and conspiracy that got Bakker a 45-year prison sentence, but he struck a plea bargain with prosecutors, pleading guilty to four of the 24 counts and agreeing to testify against Bakker and other PTL figures.
Last September, Potter sentenced a tearful Dortch to eight years in prison, telling him: “Mr. Dortch, I think you need to do some prison time. You committed a fraud and a rather large fraud at that.”
Potter sentenced Bakker to a 45-year prison sentence.
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