Bakker to Serve Term at Facility in Minnesota

ROCHESTER, Minn. â€”  Former television evangelist Jim Bakker will be moved to the Federal Medical Center here to serve out his 45-year sentence for fraud and conspiracy, officials said Friday.

Bakker, who met his wife, Tammy Faye Bakker, when they were students at North Central Bible College in Minneapolis, will be moved from a prison in Alabama to the prison in this southeastern Minnesota city of 60,000, center spokesman John Chreno said. Tammy Bakker grew up in International Falls.

Bakker, 49, founder of the PTL Ministry, will be on the medium-security facility’s work crew, but no specific assignment has been made, Chreno said.

Bakker will serve his sentence as a member of the medical center’s general population, meaning he is not being assigned to Rochester as a patient for treatment of any mental or physical illness, Chreno said. Bakker had a breakdown during his trial.

Chreno said the transfer was likely to occur within the next week to 10 days.

Bakker was convicted on Oct. 5 on all 24 fraud and conspiracy counts he faced and was sentenced in Charlotte, N.C., on Tuesday, when he was also fined $500,000. He was charged with diverting $3.7 million from PTL to his personal use.

Meanwhile, a spokeswoman for Pat Robertson said that Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network is among the bidders for the cable TV network Bakker once ran.

The Inspirational Network--a cable distribution system that reaches 7 million to 8 million homes--is up for sale because of the bankruptcy of Bakker’s empire.