Jim Bakker said he was devastated by a parole board's decision to deny him early release from prison for bilking 116,000 followers.
An attorney for the fallen television evangelist said he would ask the U.S. Parole Commission to reconsider its decision Wednesday that Bakker must remain in prison until October 1994.Bakker, who was sent to prison in October 1989, will get three years knocked off his eight-year sentence for good behavior, said Robert McFadden, executive assistant to the warden at the federal prison in Rochester, Minn.
"My children and I are devastated and deeply disappointed," Bakker, who founded the now-defunct PTL ministry, said in a statement. "Our faith remains in God, and with his help, we will be able to walk through this one more valley."
One of his attorneys, Jim Toms, said two parole board examiners who heard the appeal recommended early release, but the full federal parole commission decided against it.
"We'll ask the commission to take another look," Toms said.
The U.S. Justice Department in Washington wouldn't disclose any information about the commission's decision.
An appeals court threw out Bakker's original 45-year sentence. He was resentenced to 18 years by a judge who in December reduced the sentence further to eight years.