The building of course is staffed with Swaggart’s non-profit employees. The college dormitories, also paid for by donor money, have long since been turned into apartments and rented to the public. The Advocate, the local Baton Rouge newspaper, rents a massive building (paid for of course by donor money) from Swaggart to the tune of a million and a half dollars per year. Only pennies on the dollar were actually being spent in the feeding of starving children. According to Jernigan, contributions were not going to the Children’s Fund but were being siphoned into the general account and used for building projects. The controversy primarily centered on Swaggart’s misappropriation of funds gathered through emotional appeals in which pictures of emaciated African children were shown to garner the empathy of his Christian viewers. George Jernigan, Swaggart’s former Director of Finance, was fired in the 80’s for urging Swaggart to be frank in his fund-raising appeals. Much of the money for the building of Swaggart’s empire rode in on the back of questionable fund-raising. Swaggart has never had trouble raising money. According to those records the ministry bought the Condo for $280,000 in 1986. Swaggart claimed the condominium was a gift but state land records tell a different story. Swaggarts also made frequent use of their condominium retreat, located on a private golf course about 15 miles from Palm Springs, California. In 1985, the ministry boasted 150 million in assets including a DC3 jet once owned by the Rockefellers. How many people could afford a multi-million dollar property just to harass Jimmy Swaggart? if the wrong people got that property, we would be in trouble,” he is quoted as saying. Swaggart said he was forced to buy the land because of death threats and the discovery of intruders on his property. That was less than a month after making a desperate plea for money from his television audience in which he claimed that severe losses were threatening the very future of the ministry. According to a report by John Camp, the investigative reporter who broke the original hooker story, Swaggart purchased the lot adjoining the one he already owned in June of 1985. Of course the Swaggarts are proud members. It sits across from the highly exclusive Baton Rouge Country Club which cost in excess of 40 thousand per year to join. That’s some cottage! An unidentified Swaggart family member has placed the worth of the Swaggart’s three homes and surrounding acreage at 30 million. The square footage of Jimmy and Frances’ house alone is 9,337 square feet. One of Swaggart’s bathrooms in his “cottage” boasts a four-columned Jacuzzi with a gold swan that spouts water into an eight foot long tub. That, however, is a stretch even for a seasoned tale-bearer such as Swaggart. Swaggart once described his house as a modest two bedroom cottage. His estate includes three houses, a gazebo, a pond, and twenty landscaped acres. Swaggart’s personal home sits on some of the most expensive real estate in the Baton Rouge. It also does not include proceeds from the mountains of books, CDs and Bibles that the ministry relentlessly peddles, or the untold millions Swaggart receives in rental income from his extensive real estate holdings. That sum does not include the donations that are called in, mailed in, or made online during the rest of the month. With the launch of his SonLife Broadcasting Network, Swaggart is now pulling in roughly half a million per day during his monthly four day beg-a-thon. It was a ministry not only ravaged by greed, lust and hypocrisy but one driven to extremes to hide their dirty secrets from deceived donors at all costs.įor those of you who think Jimmy Swaggart’s peccadilloes in the 80’s permanently knocked him out of the televangelism arena, think again. Her day to day dealings there brought her in close and frequent contact with the ministry’s major players and gave her rare, behind the scene glimpses of a ministry with far too many secrets. Mishel McCumber is a writer/researcher who worked as Webmaster for Jimmy Swaggart Ministries from 2008 to 2011.
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