Report Medication or Go to Jail, Judge Tells Bakker

CHARLOTTE, N.C. —  A federal judge today threatened to jail television preacher Jim Bakker immediately for failing to report his prescribed drug use to his probation officer as ordered by the court.

U.S. District Judge Robert Potter, considered one of the toughest judges on the federal bench, threatened to jail Bakker for the remainder of his criminal trial on fraud and conspiracy charges but relented after defense lawyer Harold Bender said he--and not Bakker--was responsible for violating the judge’s order.

“Blame it on me and not my client, your honor,” said Bender, 47, whose courtly manners have charmed even Potter throughout the trial.

“It there is any contempt found, or even a single day in jail to be served, I’ll serve it,” Bender said.

Bakker, 49, is on trial for 24 counts of fraud and conspiracy related to fund-raising tactics at PTL, the television and theme park ministry he founded and lost over a sex scandal.

Two weeks ago, Bakker’s other lawyer, George Davis, brought Milwaukee psychiatrist Basil Jackson in as his “expert” witness and told the judge that Bakker had become psychotic after seeing a former PTL executive collapse on the witness stand.

Potter had Bakker taken to a prison psychiatric ward in Butner, N.C. After a six-day evaluation, Bakker was ruled competent for trial.

But prosecutors pointed out that Jackson is not licensed to practice medicine in North Carolina and had illegally prescribed the tranquilizer Xanax for Bakker.

The judge then ordered the preacher to report to his probation officer each Monday any drugs he had taken.