Word: swaggart
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Among the charges Gorman says the Swaggart camp falsely spread...
Beyond the whispering campaign, Gorman's attorneys hint at coercion. They suggest his programs were dropped from the satellite owned by James Bakker, of PTL teleministry notoriety, as a quid pro quo for Swaggart's business on the same system, and for the Louisiana preacher's silence about PTL hush money to Bakker paramour Jessica Hahn. If that was the deal, it didn't last: within a year Swaggart became one of Bakker's denouncers and helped bring about his resignation and PTL's financial collapse...
...Swaggart's basic defense, his lawyers say, is that any charges he made were factual. Says attorney Phillip Wittmann: "It's a very simple case to defend...
Gorman may exaggerate the threat he posed to Swaggart, whose operations were grossing $140 million a year before his fall. But he was beyond question a fast-rising figure. More important, Gorman was lining up wider distribution via two Louisiana TV stations and a satellite uplink -- a purchase that was scheduled to occur the day he quit the church. Gorman contends he could have brought the plan off but for Swaggart's accusations. Instead his TV ministry went bankrupt in 1987, and he left the airwaves. His new church, the Metropolitan Christian Centre in suburban Metairie, La., has 450 congregants...
Even if Gorman wins, Swaggart Ministries may not prove that much more of a prize. Once the most widely viewed of all televangelists, Swaggart has lost four-fifths of his weekly audience, plummeting from 2.2 million viewers to fewer than 400,000. Enrollment at his Bible college is down by two-thirds, to & 450, and several floors of a classroom building have been leased out. An intended 12-story dormitory, half a block from his showcase Family Worship Center, stands abandoned in mid-construction, its windows void of glass, tall weeds crowding its rusted entryway. Swaggart can still draw...