Jimmy Swaggart obituary: TV evangelist brought down by sex scandal
In October the following year, Gorman received a call from a private detective he had hired to follow Swaggart. His nemesis was with a prostitute in a seedy motel room on the outskirts of New Orleans and the gumshoe had let down Swaggart's car tyres to allow Gorman time to come over. On arriving, he found America's best-known preacher on his knees, not in prayer but trying to fit the spare wheel. Backwards.
When Gorman confronted him, Swaggart pleaded for mercy, not something he had shown to Gorman, nor to Jim Bakker, another preacher whom Swaggart had brought down over a tryst with a 21-year-old church secretary. He offered Gorman and his family jobs with his own church, which Gorman turned down. He then promised to admit his sins to the church authorities.
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