Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, May 31, 1990 TAG: 9005310609
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A/9 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: COLUMBIA, S.C. LENGTH: Medium
Morris Cerullo, head of the Worldwide Evangelism Inc. of San Diego, made a $7 million down payment Wednesday after signing the contract with PTL bankruptcy trustee Dennis Shedd, The Charlotte (N.C.) Observer reported.
The sale was expected to be the subject of proceedings today in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Columbia.
Cerullo, 58, an Assemblies of God pastor, has an organization with branches in Great Britain, Canada, Israel and Zimbabwe. In 1978, he unveiled plans for a $100 million "world outreach center" in San Diego, but unlike Bakker's Heritage USA complex, it never materialized.
The Observer said Shedd provided few details, except that the purchase will involve two separate closings - one for PTL's religious television network and another for Heritage USA, the religious retreat and theme park in Fort Mill.
Shedd has said that any offer he accepts must be paid in full at the time of the sale, not paid over time.
Earlier this month, Shedd signed a contract to sell PTL's television network to evangelist Oral Roberts for $6 million unless someone else agreed to buy all the assets as a package deal.
Cable television's Home Box Office asked the Bankruptcy Court to block that deal, however, because it doubted Roberts could make the $242,000 monthly payments for the use of a satellite HBO provides for PTL.
PTL has been in bankruptcy proceedings since June 1987, three months after Bakker resigned in the sex-and-money scandal that led up to his 45-year federal prison term for fraud and conspiracy.
Although the PTL network still carries other evangelists' taped programs, Heritage USA, where Bakker had his studios and church, has been closed since September. The 500-acre retreat near Fort Mill also has five restaurants, a $10 million water park and two 500-room hotels, one of them unfinished. It includes about 1,700 undeveloped acres.
Last year, Toronto businessman Stephen Mernick failed to close on a $65 million deal to buy PTL with bank financing. The lenders wanted title insurance for Heritage USA, and Mernick could not obtain it because of a Catawba Indian lawsuit claiming 144,000 acres of land, including the Heritage USA site, was illegally sold to the state in 1840.
by CNB