Jim Bakker plans to start new ministry

Arizona Republic/September 19, 2002

Televangelist Jim Bakker, who was convicted of wire fraud and served five years in prison, said he plans to start another TV ministry, this time in Branson, Mo.

The 62-year-old former Assemblies of God minister said he already had commitments from stations in several cities to broadcast his hourlong show, which will originate from a restaurant beginning a few weeks from now. His wife, Lori Graham Bakker, will be his co-host.

"We serve a God of the second chance," he said. "We're about restoration. We're not coming to say, 'Be like us.' " Bakker, who first hit the airwaves with his PTL Ministries in the 1970s, resigned from PTL in 1987 admitting to an affair with a ministry secretary, Jessica Hahn. Soon after, he and other ministry officials were implicated in a fraud scheme linked to the sale of memberships in his Heritage USA theme park in Fort Mill, S.C.

While he was in prison, his wife at the time, Tammy Faye Bakker, divorced him.