Bakker Aide Denied Sex, Money Rumor, Minister Says

A former member of the PTL board of directors said Tuesday that Jim Bakker’s chief administrator twice told him that there was no truth to sex-and-payoff rumors involving the evangelist, the last denial coming only weeks before Bakker resigned over the scandal.

The Rev. J. Don George, a pastor in Irving, Tex., who left the board Feb. 18 for unrelated reasons, said in a telephone interview that he confronted the Rev. Richard Dortch, then PTL’s executive vice president, last fall and again within weeks after he quit the board.

“He steadfastly denied it even at that date,” George said.

No Response

Dortch declined Tuesday to comment on George’s claims, according to aides.

Bakker, 47, founder, chairman and president of the $172-million television ministry, resigned March 19 as he admitted that he was involved in a 1980 sexual encounter with a former church secretary and that he had paid money to keep the matter quiet. Bakker turned over the evangelistic organization to fundamentalist leader Jerry Falwell, who asked Dortch stay on to provide transition for a newly formed board.

Falwell said Thursday that the board’s auditing committee will look into the sources of a reported $265,000 payment negotiated in February, 1985, for Jessica Hahn, the woman who met Bakker in a Florida motel. Dortch suggested the settlement, according to Anaheim businessman Paul Roper, who represented Hahn.

George, an Assemblies of God pastor of the 4,500-member Calvary Temple near Dallas, said it “was a horrible thing” for a minister to be involved in any sexual indiscretion.

“But when you add to that . . . the expenditure of money in the attempt to quiet an involved party, and add to that the lies and untruths, it compounds the problem dramatically. I have no idea where the money came from. If it was personal money spent by Jim Bakker, that would certainly not be as severe a situation if it were learned that PTL funds were spent, as I see it,” he said.

Basis for Resignation

George said he resigned from the board after 15 months because of what he said were philosophical differences. He said that he did not like PTL’s heavy emphasis on “entertainment” and that he was “troubled” by some people invited as guests on the “Jim and Tammy” talk show.

When he heard rumors that Bakker had had sex with a woman who was asking for money, George said he confronted Dortch privately in Dortch’s office last fall. “I was told (by Dortch) that a woman accused Bakker but that she had subsequently recanted her story and signed a document stating that there was no sexual encounter and that she had received no money and that that was the end of it,” George said.

George told The Times on Tuesday that he confronted Dortch a second time, by telephone, in early March after hearing that the Charlotte Observer was looking into the same reports about Bakker. George said that Dortch denied again that a sexual encounter had occurred and said he “was not aware of any payoff.”

George said he has not talked about the matter to Assemblies of God officials but added, “I would be delighted to communicate with them.”