CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Preacher John Wesley Fletcher, who introduced PTL leader Jim Bakker to Jessica Hahn, was sentenced Tuesday to be home by curfew every night for the next eight months as punishment for lying to a grand jury.
Fletcher, 50, was the last of six defendants to come before U.S. District Judge Robert Potter on criminal charges stemming from a sex and money scandal that cost Bakker his PTL ministry and ultimately his freedom.
'I feel fortunate not to have to go to prison,' Fletcher said as he left the federal court in Charlotte. 'I was scared. I was petrified.'
Earlier this month Fletcher pleaded guilty to a single count of perjury in testimony before the grand jury that indicted Bakker.
Potter placed Fletcher on probation for three years for lying when he said he did not know that sex was the purpose of the rendezvous he set up between Bakker and Hahn in a Florida hotel room in December 1980.
Potter also ordered Fletcher to be home with his mother in Durham, N.C., every night by 8 p.m. for the next eight months and to stay there until morning.
Fletcher's court-appointed lawyer, George Laughrun, told Potter that Fletcher was on an anti-depressant drug when he first appeared before the grand jury and twice tried to commit suicide since the PTL scandal broke.
'He has seen rock bottom and is working his way back up,' Laughrun said. 'Give him credit for coming in and pleading guilty. I don't think society would benefit by him being incarcerated.'
At that, Fletcher began to sob.
'I'm sorry,' were the only words he spoke to the judge.
Outside of court, he elaborated.
'If I could turn back the clock, I would,' Fletcher said. 'I've been in prison for three years. Since this whole thing broke, I've had no life of my own, no peace of mind, endless, sleepless nights.
'I want to get on with my life,' he said. 'I'm not angry or mad. I just want to put my life back together.'
Fletcher was one of the more colorful figures in the PTL scandal.
A former cab driver and bartender, he first came to Bakker's attention as a fund-raiser for PTL telethons, but later was defrocked by the Assemblies of God denomination for alcoholism.
He told Penthouse magazine writer Art Harris that he and Bakker had been sexual partners on several occasions and that, contrary to her claims, Hahn was no virgin when she met Bakker because she had already bedded down with him. Both Bakker and Hahn have denied sexual involvement with Fletcher.
Fletcher had faced a maximum of five years in prison, but in exchange for his guilty plea prosecutors asked Potter to sentence him to no more than 14 months.
The judge, known as 'Maximum Bob' for the tough sentences he hands white-collar criminals, last year sentenced Bakker to 45 years in prison, a period longer than the combined terms handed all other defendants in the PTL scandal.
Bakker's right-hand man at PTL, Richard Dortch, agreed to become a government witness against Bakker after the two were indicted on 24 identical counts of fraud and conspiracy stemming from the way they raised and spent money at PTL.
Dortch got an eight-year term that last month was reduced to 2 years behind bars at Eglin Air Force Base, one of the nation's so-called country-club prisons.
Two other Bakker aides, brothers David and James Taggart, were sentenced to more than 17 years each at Maxwell Air Force Base, another country-club prison. Perjury charges against a sixth PTL figure, the Rev. Sam Johnson, were tossed out by Potter midway through his trial in April.
Only Bakker is actually serving hard time, in a medium security prison in Rochester, Minn. Unless his planned appeal is successful, he will not be eligible for parole until the year 2000.
