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Bakker Expresses Remorse, Gets 18 Years Instead of 45

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From Associated Press

A federal judge on Friday resentenced Jim Bakker to 18 years in prison, a 27-year reduction of the initial sentence, after the former television evangelist expressed remorse for bilking his followers.

“I ask all that I have hurt to please forgive me,” Bakker told U.S. District Judge Graham Mullen. “I have asked heavenly God to please forgive me, and now I ask this court for human forgiveness.

“Your honor, I am deeply and seriously remorseful for my moral failures and the hurt I caused to so many people. I have failed so many people who trusted in me.”

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Minutes later, Mullen sentenced the PTL ministry founder to the reduced term, which makes him eligible for parole in 1995. Mullen did not rescind a $500,000 fine that was imposed on Bakker in addition to a 45-year prison sentence after his fraud conviction in 1989.

In February, the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Bakker’s conviction but threw out the sentence imposed by U.S. District Judge Robert Potter. Bakker, 51, who has spent nearly two years in a federal prison in Rochester, Minn., would not have been eligible for parole until 2001 under the old sentence.

Mullen said he was impressed with Bakker’s “remarkable” adjustment to prison life. Bakker has worked with a hospice, raised money for the United Way and led a stop-smoking class in prison.

Bakker’s lawyer, Harold Bender, said: “We’re thankful we got the reduction that we did, although we hoped that it would have been substantially more.”

Neither Bakker nor his family showed emotion when Mullen handed down the sentence. But his wife, Tammy Faye Bakker, wiped away tears when Bakker pleaded for leniency.

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