Jim Bakker in court in leg irons

Press, 8 September 1989, Page 6

Jim Bakker in court in leg irons

NZPA-Reuter Charlotte Former employees yesterday testified that a television evangelist, Jim Bakker, knowingly sold more memberships in his theme park than could be accommodated and offered a luxury car to whoever sold the most The former employees testified after a United States federal judge, Robert Potter, ordered the trial to resume after a five-day break while Bakker underwent mental tests. A psychiatrist, Sally Johnson, said Bakker was not hallucinating when he reported seeing huge ants with antennae outside the courthouse last week. She said Bakker was only having an anxiety attack brought on by the stress of the trial, and the ants were in fact a swarm of reporters and television technicians with headphones. “Mr Bakker is strong enough to handle the trial process. He does not have an underlying psychiatric disorder. He has the capacity to go through with it,” she said. The Bakker case, with its elements of religion, money and sex, has become almost a national soap opera. A former employee, Carol Price, said Bakker continued to sell memberships at his huge Heritage U.S.A. theme park after a planned limit of 25,000 was exceeded. As a result, members had to wait up to 18 months for the three nights a year of free lodging they were promised for a SNZI6BS membership. Nevertheless, she said, Bakker held a staff meeting in 1985 and offered whoever sold the most memberships a Cadillac car. At the height of his popularity, broadcasts of Bakker’s Praise the Lord ministry were seen by millions of people on 126 cable television stations. It all collapsed in 1987 after it was revealed that Bakker had had an affair with a former church secretary, Jessica Hahn, and that Praise the Lord had paid her to hush it up. Miss Hahn later posed for “Playboy” magazine.