Felt Like Discarded ‘Hamburger’ : Woman’s Story of Bakker Tryst Told for First Time

After her one-time sexual encounter with television evangelist Jim Bakker, Jessica Hahn suffered “tremendous emotional distress” and came to feel “like a piece of hamburger somebody threw out in the street,” according to the man who negotiated a $265,000 settlement for Hahn.

Paul Roper, a self-described church watchdog, Thursday provided the first detailed account of Hahn’s version of a tryst that has toppled one of the nation’s most powerful television ministers and set his colleagues to bickering among each other in public.

“She didn’t go down there to have an affair with this guy,” said Roper, an Orange County businessman who has made a reputation in Christian circles for his investigations of wayward preachers.

Earlier in the day, Hahn appeared briefly for reporters at her West Babylon, N.Y., residence and referred all questions about the 1980 liaison and its aftermath to Roper, who she described as “my representative.” Reached later by telephone at his Anaheim home, Roper described what he said Hahn had told him of her encounter with Bakker.

The telling of Hahn’s story came on the same day the Rev. Jerry Falwell assumed control of Bakker’s $129-million-a-year ministry, appearing on what had long been Bakker’s morning telecast to pray, preach and talk a little business before conducting his first meeting as the new chairman of the board of PTL.

Roper said Hahn was a 19- or 20-year-old secretary and a regular churchgoer in 1980, when she accepted an invitation to fly from New York City to see Bakker tape a television service in Clearwater, Fla.

The southern preacher was “her hero,” Roper said. “She never missed his show.”

When she arrived, Roper said, a mutual acquaintance of Hahn and Bakker checked her into a hotel room and gave her a glass of wine that made her ill. Soon, Roper said, Bakker was brought by the acquaintance from the swimming pool to the room, arriving in a white terry cloth bathing suit. The acquaintance, Roper said, suggested that Hahn give Bakker “a back rub” to relax him before the night’s prayer service, and then left the room.

“Before long,” Roper said, “they were engaged in a sexual incident. . . . The next day she went home.”

Closed Inquest

Roper said he told essentially the same story Wednesday to the leaders of the Assemblies of God denomination at a closed inquest in Springfield, Mo. The church leaders are contemplating the revocation of Bakker’s ordination and have refused to comment on testimony they received at the daylong hearing.

Roper said Hahn “went through tremendous emotional distress after (the Bakker encounter) and was looking for help.” She began to skip Sunday services and to miss work. She started to tell friends about the encounter and her attitude, Roper said, was one of “this guy at least owes me an apology and to say he was wrong.”

Roper continued: “Her problem was emotionally and psychologically she couldn’t get over this thing. There had never been an attempt to make things right with her. She felt she was a victim and all they were doing was ignoring her--like she was a piece of hamburger somebody threw out into the street.”

Hahn presented her story to Roper in December, 1984. A mutual friend from Orange County had put the two together, he said. Roper said he spent the next month investigating her story and “came to the conclusion this woman had been terribly damaged.”

Roper said he made “a dozen” telephone calls to PTL in an effort to confront Bakker, Christian to Christian. Unable to get through, he sent a package that contained a transcript of Hahn’s narrative description of her trip from New York to Florida to see Bakker and a draft of a proposed civil complaint for assault and battery, false imprisonment and infliction of emotional distress.

Shortly thereafter, Roper said, he was contacted by a PTL official, the Rev. Richard Dortch, Bakker’s top assistant at the time. Roper said Hahn did not initially seek money from the church, but merely wanted a confidential forum to air her grievance with Bakker. However, attorneys eventually were hired and negotiations were begun, ending in a $265,000 settlement.

Terms of Agreement

Terms of the agreement were for Hahn to receive about $20,000 of an initial $115,000 payment, with the bulk of the money going to pay attorneys and investigators, including Roper. Roper declined to say how much he received.

In addition, a $150,000 trust account payable only to Hahn was opened in a Los Angeles bank. Interest on the account was to be given to Hahn in monthly installments for 20 years. At the end of that period she would get the $150,000.

Hahn is still drawing the interest, Roper said. He added that he did not know the source of the money paid to Hahn.

A condition of the agreement, Roper said, was that Hahn “not personally go public or file a lawsuit.” Roper said he was not bound by the confidentiality clause. Roper denied that he leaked word of the scandal to the Charlotte, N.C., Observer, starting a chain of events that ultimately brought Bakker’s resignation and the choice of Falwell to succeed him as head of the PTL empire.

Roper said he was angered by Bakker’s assertions upon his resignation March 19 that he had been “blackmailed” by Hahn and that fellow television evangelist Jimmy Swaggart had tried to use knowledge of the then-undisclosed liaison to engineer a “hostile takeover” of PTL.

“I think anyone who sets himself up as a Christian leader,” Roper said, “should have enough guts when they make a mistake to do what they ask everyone else to do--confess their sin and make restitution with courage. He (Bakker) admitted that he made a mistake, and ever since then he has tried to get the words back in his mouth and create a great smokescreen.”

‘Deeply Concerned’

In New York, Hahn told reporters that she felt “deeply concerned about the people that attend all these churches. I hope they see this will pass, and this has no reflections upon the Lord. God is still there for them and always will be. I am all right but would like for this to end. I don’t want to see innocent people get hurt.”

A far different account of the episode was reported by the Washington Post in its editions today. The newspaper quoted Jamie Buckingham, a columnist for the Pentecostal magazine Charisma, who on Tuesday concluded a three-day visit with the Bakkers in Palm Springs.

Buckingham told The Post that Bakker said he “was very surprised that this gal was able to perform the way that she did. . . . She just got hold of a Pentecostal preacher who didn’t know how to handle it and it just devastated him. He felt terrible guilt. Afterwards he was confused and frightened and ran back to Charlotte and confessed the whole thing. . . .”

Told of Bakker’s remarks, Hahn expressed outrage in an interview late Thursday with the Long Island newspaper Newsday. “That was not my style, honest,” she said, her voice shaking. “I think it’s a ridiculous statement.”

Early Thursday, Falwell appeared on the “PTL Club” show that had long been the electronic pulpit of Bakker, expressing confidence that God would treat the scandalized preacher and his troubled wife “as they need and should be treated.”

Though congenial and understated, Falwell’s presence punctuated what appeared to be the end of Bakker’s leadership of a television ministry he and his wife nurtured into a religious powerhouse--and the beginning of Falwell’s reign as chairman of the board of PTL. The initials “PTL” stand for both Praise The Lord and People That Love.

Ease Any Wariness

Falwell sought to ease any wariness toward him among Bakker congregants. The 1,600-seat studio was filled to capacity.

“I am not going to stamp Jerry Falwell on this ministry or create an independent Baptist empire,” said the founder of the Moral Majority, now called the Liberty Foundation.

Falwell described how earlier this month he flew to Palm Springs to ask Bakker about the rumors that he had been involved in a sexual liaison. Falwell, Swaggart and Tennessee evangelist John Ankerberg previously had sent Bakker a letter detailing the allegations, according to Ankerberg.

Falwell said Bakker asked him to assume leadership of PTL and quoted him as saying, “ ‘You know, Jerry, in seven years, you are the only brother who loved me enough to confront me with it.’

“I want to tell you,” Falwell told Bakker’s former television audience, “there was love. It wasn’t all this garbage floating around in the press.”

Falwell led a prayer from the L-shaped sofa that had long been the main prop in Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker’s talk show-like production, petitioning God for the “spiritual restoration” of Bakker and his wife. Tammy Bakker is undergoing treatment at the Betty Ford Center for an addiction to prescription drugs.

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Away from the PTL set, Falwell declared that the Bakkers would continue on the PTL payroll for an undetermined length of time, but added that the Pentecostal evangelist would not be welcome back soon as the head of the ministry.

“We’re here to do what Jim Bakker asked me to do . . . to maintain the stability and the ongoing health of this ministry of Christ,” Falwell said of himself and the new board of directors he appointed to replace Bakker’s panel. “It is our opinion we could not do it if Jim Bakker were here on this campus.”

A return by Bakker, he said, would create a problem of “credibility” and prompt the resignation of the new board, which includes several ministers, a Bible publisher and former Interior Secretary James G. Watt.

Falwell said the absence of the Bakker’s leadership would not deal the ministry a lethal financial blow. “As of this day,” he said, “revenues are up as compared with the same day a year ago.” He added, nonetheless, that PTL was considering whether to take out a loan of about $50 million from an unidentified source in Great Britain in a move to consolidate debts.

A financial statement distributed by Falwell showed PTL assets of $172 million and total current liabilities of $42.1 million. Other long-term debt was listed at $28.2 million.

“We anticipate no financial crisis for this institution,” Falwell said.

There are significant religious differences between fundamental Baptists like Falwell and Pentecostals like Bakker, but Falwell and other board members stressed that PTL would remain essentially unchanged despite the abrupt change in leadership.

Falwell said that none of the new board members “is compromising our theological integrity, or are we going to change or ask anyone else to change. We’re trying to close ranks and prevent the enemy from having a field day.”

Significantly, Bakker’s top assistant, the Rev. Dortch, was installed as president and regular host of PTL, and Falwell prayed for him on television, too, saying, “Boy, he’s going to need help from you as he never needed it before.”

Dortch has been identified as having had knowledge of the Hahn encounter before its public disclosure.

Bakker remained secluded in Palm Springs with his wife.

Times staff writers John Dart in Fort Mill, S.C., and Bob Secter in Springfield, Mo., also contributed to this story.

These are difficult times for those who put their faith in the Bakkers. Story in View.