People who sued Bakker net $6.54

ASHEVILLE, N.C. -- A 16-year-old, class-action lawsuit against disgraced televangelist Jim Bakker has netted $6.54 payments for the 165,000 plaintiffs.

Meanwhile, their lawyers will get $2.5 million of a $3.7 million settlement fund, the Citizen-Times of Asheville reported Thursday.

The plaintiffs gave $1,000 each for four-day vacation stays at a PTL (Praise the Lord) resort that was never built near Charlotte.

An order issued last month by Asheville-based U.S. District Judge Lacy Thornburg gives a California claims administrator a month to issue the checks. Money for the settlement fund was placed there by former PTL accountants.

California-based law firm Thomas T. Anderson and Associates had asked Thornburg for the entire settlement, saying it would be fruitless to search for everyone involved in the suit.

Thornburg denied that request last year.

Bakker resigned from Praise The Lord ministries in 1987 after admitting he had an affair with a ministry secretary. In 1989, he was convicted in Charlotte of a wire and mail-fraud scheme over the sale of more than 150,000 lifetime partnerships to the planned Heritage USA theme park in Fort Mill, S.C.

Bakker's 45-year sentence was reduced to 18 years and he served five before his parole in 1995. While in prison, his former wife, Tammy Faye -- now remarried as Tammy Faye Messner -- divorced him.

Bakker is now back on the air with "The Jim Bakker Show," taped in Branson, Mo.