The Nation - News from Feb. 25, 1988

Assemblies of God leaders, swamped with protests that the penalty recommended for television evangelist Jimmy Swaggart’s moral lapses was too mild, indicated at their headquarters in Springfield, Mo., that it may be stiffened. A special meeting was called for today of the church’s 13-member executive presbytery, which rules on such matters, to examine the Louisiana state presbytery’s recommendation that Swaggart be suspended from preaching for three months and undergo two years’ rehabilitation. Meanwhile, a woman claiming to be a prostitute told WVUE-TV in New Orleans that she was with the evangelist when he reportedly was photographed going into a motel room in October. The woman, who gave her name as Debra Murphree, said that she had been meeting with Swaggart for about a year.