Payments to Hanhn in Bakker Case Halted

Jessica Hahn has stopped receiving monthly payments from a settlement reached after she complained about a 1980 sexual encounter with evangelist Jim Bakker, according to the man who negotiated the settlement for her.

Hahn, who claims Bakker forced her to have sex with him in a Florida hotel room, has not received her settlement payments for March and April, Anaheim businessman Paul Roper said Tuesday night.

Hahn had been receiving $800 to $1,200 a month since March, 1985, according to Roper. He said he negotiated the settlement with PTL official Richard Dortch but that he did not know whether the money came from Bakker, his PTL ministry or some other source. PTL spokesman Neil Eskelis in Fort Mill, S.C., refused to comment Wednesday.

Roper said that no reason was given for the cutoff but that he was “taking all necessary legal action” to have the payments restored to Hahn. The settlement was reached on condition that Hahn not discuss the 1980 events, but Roper denied that he or Hahn had done anything to violate that confidentiality requirement.

Roper blamed information leaks from others and Bakker’s own admission for publicizing the scandal. Bakker resigned March 19 from PTL, saying that he was blackmailed over the extramarital tryst.

Roper said the 27-year old Hahn is currently unemployed, emotionally distraught and depending on the trust payments for her support. Roper has said the settlement included a one-time $115,000 payment in February, 1985, to Hahn and her representatives, plus the $150,000 trust account.

Meanwhile, in a document said to be a transcript of Hahn’s taped account of the 1980 incident, Hahn said that John Wesley Fletcher, a traveling evangelist from Oklahoma City, also forced her to have sex against her will after Bakker left the Clearwater, Fla., hotel room.

According to the unsigned document, dated Jan. 3, 1985, and obtained by The Times, Hahn said she was invited by Fletcher to go to Florida to watch him and Bakker appear in a telethon. Hahn said she had been a baby-sitter for Fletcher years before and was a fan of Bakker’s PTL television show.

Hahn said she had no idea she was being set up for a sexual encounter with Bakker. She felt she was unable to resist Bakker’s advances partly because Fletcher gave her a glass of wine that put her in a daze, according to the statement.

Real Intentions

When Bakker left the room after the sexual encounter, Hahn said in the statement, she asked Fletcher why he had not told her of his real intentions. According to the transcript, Fletcher said, “Just think how many people you are helping. He (Bakker) is a shepherd, and when you help the shepherd, you help the sheep.”

Then, according to the transcript, Fletcher forced her to have sex with him.

Hahn said that after the ordeal she turned on the telethon and heard Fletcher say to Bakker, “You had a good rest today,” and Bakker answered, “Ya, I need more rest like that.”

Hahn said, “I felt like they were making fun of me right on television.”

Hahn would not confirm the authenticity of a similar copy of the transcript obtained by the New York newspaper Newsday.

“I can’t confirm what you’re reading is real,” she told Newsday. “I’m not talking.”

The transcript was said to be the one that Roper attached to a draft of a proposed civil complaint for assault and battery, false imprisonment and infliction of emotional distress and sent to PTL. The legal action was never filed, however, and the settlement was reached.

Fletcher, who has been dismissed from the Assemblies of God church, held a service Sunday for about 300 people at the Anaheim Convention Center. He has been unavailable this week for comment.