ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times

DATE: Saturday, March 1, 1997                TAG: 9703030052
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL   PAGE: A-4  EDITION: METRO 
DATELINE: WICHITA, KAN.

PTL FIGURE'S SPOUSE LOSES COURT APPEAL

A federal appeals panel upheld the bankruptcy fraud conviction and two-year prison sentence given to the second husband of Tammy Faye Messner, ex-wife of PTL evangelist Jim Bakker.

But the panel said in its Feb. 19 ruling that the $72,500 in restitution Roe Messner was ordered to pay must be recalculated, U.S. Attorney Jackie Williams said Friday. The amount is likely to drop in the recalculation.

Messner, 61, was convicted in 1995 on two counts of concealing assets from creditors and three counts of making false statements about the bankruptcy case. Messner, who now lives in California, has been free on bond during the appeal.

Messner argued the restitution was too high because his concealment of assets did not cause creditors to lose money. The panel ordered the restitution to be recalculated and based on the amount of financial loss to creditors.

Messner, who built the Heritage USA religious theme park for Bakker, ran into financial difficulty in the late 1980s when Bakker's religious empire began to collapse. Messner, Bakker's best friend, filed for personal and corporate bankruptcy in 1990.

Bakker spent five years in prison for bilking followers out of millions of dollars.

- Associated Press

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