Televangelist Jim Bakker’s Church To Pay $156,000 To Settle Case Involving Fake Covid Cure

Mod: Is a mere $156,000 fine really enough for this kind of swindling? Plus Jimbo didn't have to admit any wrongdoing. Apparently in Missouri fraud is a form of religious freedom.

Televangelist Jim Bakker’s Church To Pay $156,000 To Settle Case Involving Fake Covid Cure (Forbeslink): Notorious televangelist Jim Bakker and his church in southwestern Missouri was ordered to pay $156,000 in restitution to viewers of his religious talk show who were convinced into purchasing a fake Covid-19 cure during the early stages of the pandemic.

Under the settlement, which was filed on Tuesday, refunds will be made to people who paid to obtain a health supplement called ‘Silver Solution’ in February and March 2020

Bakker and his company Morningside Church Productions Inc. are also banned by the settlement from advertising or selling the Silver Solution product “to diagnose, prevent, mitigate, treat or cure any disease or illness.” However, under terms of the agreement Bakker did not admit to any wrongdoing.

Missouri’s Republican Attorney General Eric Schmitt originally sued Bakker in March 2020 in order to prohibit the TV minister from selling Silver Solution— which came in gels, lozenges and liquids — as a treatment for the virus on The Jim Bakker Show, his streaming TV show. Schmitt’s suit said Bakker and a guest named Sherrill Sellman, referred to by Bakker as a “naturopathic doctor,” falsely claimed the product would cure Covid in 11 episodes of the show in February and March of 2020. 

In those broadcasts Bakker offered to supply the product to viewers who contributed $80 to $125 to the church. Bakker’s attorney, former Missouri Governor and attorney general Jay Nixon, earlier claimed his client was being unfairly targeted in the litigation. 

Nixon told St. Louis public radio last month that Bakker had a “First Amendment” right to encourage viewers to prepare their bodies for the “end times” and that Bakker was only acting on his religious beliefs. 

Nixon, who filed an injunction to halt the lawsuit, said the government was impinging on Bakker’s right to practice his faith. Nixon further claimed that the suit was an attempt to “crush” Bakker’s ministry and “force his Christian television program off the air.”

Mod: More at the link.

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