On This Date, 25 Years Ago

This was the date in 1989, televangelist Reverend Jim Bakker was sentenced to 45 years in prison and fined $500,000 for his conviction on 24 counts of fraud and conspiracy stemming from his P.T.L. (Praise The Lord) ministry.

In 1991, an appeals court reduced the sentence to 18 years.  But in 1994, Jim Bakker was paroled after serving just under five years here at the Federal Medical Center in Rochester.  Our local news director, Kim David, said there were news outlets from all over the world covering the story, when Bakker got locked up at the FMC.

When confronted about the missing $158,000,000, he claimed that Satan had gotten into his ministry's computers to make the money lost.  When asked if he could prove Satan stole the money, he replied, "Can you prove he didn't?"

And now, look what this wicked jerk is up to nowadays . . . "The New Jim Bakker Show".