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PTL Victims to Receive $6.54 Each [Lawyers take $2.5 million of $3.7 million settlement]
Christianity Today ^
| 09/12/2003
Posted on 09/12/2003 11:45:05 AM PDT by Between the Lines
The 165,000 people who gave $1,000 to Jim Bakker's planned Heritage U.S.A. resort in return for promised four-day vacation stays will receive just $6.54 each.
That's partly because attorneys will receive $2.5 million of the $3.7 million settlement fund (created by former PTL accountants years ago), under a July 24 order issued by U.S. District Judge Lacy Thornburg in Asheville, North Carolina. A claims administrator will receive $200,000 to track down people entitled to money. Had the victims been given the entire settlement, it would have amounted to only $22.42 each.
Thomas T. Anderson and Associates, a California-based law firm, actually asked the judge for the entire settlement. The firm claimed it would be fruitless to search for all involved in the 16-year-old class action. Thornburg denied that request last year.
Bakker resigned from PTL in 1987 after admitting to an affair with a ministry secretary. He was convicted two years later of a wire- and mail-fraud scheme involving the sale of lifetime partnerships in Heritage U.S.A. in Fort Mill, South Carolina.
Bakker was sentenced to 45 years in prison. A judge later cut his term to 18 years. He served 5 before being paroled in 1995.
Bakker is on the air again with The Jim Bakker Show, which originates at the Studio City Café in Branson, Missouri. The show's first installment aired on January 2.
TOPICS: News/Current Events; US: North Carolina; US: South Carolina
KEYWORDS: jimbakker; ptl
To: Between the Lines
Is this a great country or what?
2
posted on
09/12/2003 11:46:23 AM PDT
by
Wolfie
To: Wolfie
Is this a great country or what? For lawyers, yeah.
3
posted on
09/12/2003 11:49:07 AM PDT
by
Flyer
(I left my tag line in Humblegunner's truck)
To: Wolfie
If your a sleazeball lawyer or court administrator, YES.
These class-action suits are often of, by, and for lawyers only. Judges, as former lawyers, naturally go along with this leechlike behavior.
Can't even blame the 'Rats for this one. There are plenty of complicit 'Pubs in the Senate who will never allow reform of the tort process.
To: Wolfie
Law firms that do these class action suits always take 99% of the settlement. It is such a sleaze operation they make other trial lawyers look honest.
5
posted on
09/12/2003 11:49:58 AM PDT
by
RicocheT
To: Between the Lines
This is PRECISELY why I, as a former trial attorney, vigorously support tort reform both at the national level and state by state. This is not a story about lawyers being paid a fee. It is about hyenas devouring a financial carcass, unfortunately with the complicity of a former trial lawyer who now sits on a bench and wears a black robe.
American lawyers today are no better than a plague of locusts in a corn field. It's us or them. And getting control of them will be one of the major efforts of the next ten years.
Congressman Billybob
Latest column, "Paying the Wrong Piper," discussion thread on FR. Article also on ChronWatch.
6
posted on
09/12/2003 11:50:27 AM PDT
by
Congressman Billybob
(Everyone talks about Congress; I am doing something about it.)
To: Chancellor Palpatine
pingy
7
posted on
09/12/2003 11:51:36 AM PDT
by
Mamzelle
To: Between the Lines
Boy, am I glad those fine, upstanding lawyers are protecting me and my money from those money-grubbing, self-righteous, hypocritical Christians who twisted my arm behind my back until I gave them some money against my will. Nevermind that I never investigated my "investment" with those lousy televangelists. Why should I be penalized for being stupid? I wanted my money back. I didn't get it, but at least THEY didn't get to keep it.
Yessir, I'm GLAD the lawyers got it all, nobody deserves it more. They're smart, I tell ya! I hope they'll represent me again when I do something else stupid, like spill hot coffee in my lap.
[/sarcasm]
To: Congressman Billybob
And this is just the trial lawyers. Take a good look at the industry divorce lawyers made out of destroying the family.
9
posted on
09/12/2003 12:01:32 PM PDT
by
Orangedog
(Soccer-Moms are the biggest threat to your freedoms and the republic !)
To: January24th
I wanted my money back. I didn't get it, but at least THEY didn't get to keep it.Victimized twice! But like you say "at least THEY didn't get to keep it.
10
posted on
09/12/2003 12:01:33 PM PDT
by
Between the Lines
("What Goes Into the Mind Comes Out in a Life")
To: Congressman Billybob
Well said!
11
posted on
09/12/2003 12:02:50 PM PDT
by
Between the Lines
("What Goes Into the Mind Comes Out in a Life")
To: Flyer
And for phony evangelists, too. Remember, Bakker stole a lot more than these loawyers are getting, got off with a skimpy 5 years in the slammer, and is now at it again.
To: Between the Lines
The 165,000 people who gave $1,000 to Jim Bakker's planned Heritage U.S.A. resort in return for promised four-day vacation stays... Incredible and pathetic. Televangelists have a license to steal in this country. What's even sadder is that those they steal from are often those who can least afford the loss.
That Jim Baker, Robert Tilton, and Peter Popov are all currently back in business after their scams have been exposed in the national media is simply unbelievable.
Perhaps I'm in the wrong line of work!
13
posted on
09/12/2003 12:04:24 PM PDT
by
WackyKat
To: Between the Lines
The title says it all.
To: Between the Lines
I'm the 165,000 would be much happier if they got to split the entire $3.7 million. At $22.42 each, they could take the whole family to McDonalds.
To: Between the Lines
I can just see it now, Jim Baker, just like Navin Johnson in "The Jerk," writing out individual checks for $6.54.
16
posted on
09/12/2003 1:02:20 PM PDT
by
dfwgator
To: Between the Lines
An appropriate ending to the PTL saga.
After all, PTL always stood for Pass The Loot.
17
posted on
09/12/2003 10:58:02 PM PDT
by
tlb
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