Jury deliberations are underway in the long-running case between the Rev. Jimmy Swaggart’s Family Worship Center Church and a group of investors who, for more than 10 years, have been trying to buy an undeveloped tract of land on the FWCC campus.
The nearly two-week trial in the case ended this afternoon after more than four hours of closing arguments in Judge William Morvant’s courtroom in the 19th Judicial District. Deliberations began some time after 2 p.m.
Before the jury is the question of whether Health Science Park—a group of investors headed by Stephen Jones and Terry Jones, who are not related, and Gary Solomon—have the right to exercise an option agreement they signed with FWCC in late 2004 to buy the 60-acre parcel behind FWCC’s Family Christian Academy for $6.7 million.
HSP had hoped originally to develop a medical campus on the site for LSU with a replacement facility for the then-aging Earl K. Long charity hospital. The group alleges FWCC tried to back out of the deal when Hurricane Katrina caused real estate prices in the area to surge.
In closing arguments today, HSP attorney Claude Reynaud said FWCC has come up with countless excuses over the years to try to back out of the agreement with HSP, which he likened to a classic arcade game.
“The ministry has been playing ‘Whack-A-Mole’ for years, and it is time to put a stop to it,” he said. “It is has been one excuse after another for 10 years.”
FWCC has argued that HSP is in breach of the contract, and says the option agreement was only supposed to be valid if the property was to be developed in conjunction with LSU for a medical campus. Any potential for a deal with LSU fell apart years ago, when the university partnered with Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center to begin providing indigent care.
“The agreement between the church and HSP was that the contract can only be exercised if HSP was developing a new LSU charity hospital,” FWCC attorney Stewart Niles said.
The jury is also considering whether to award damages to HSP, which says it has missed out on millions of dollars it could have made had it been able to develop the land over the past decade. The group is asking for some $3.4 million in addition to the right to exercise the option and buy the property at its pre-Katrina price.
Both sides have indicated they will appeal if unsuccessful at the trial court level.
—Stephanie Riegel
