In a plea agreement announced Oct. 2, Gateway Church founder Robert Morris pleaded guilty to five felony counts of lewd or indecent acts with a child.
Morris was given a 10-year sentence, but with the negotiated plea deal will serve only six months in the Osage County Jail. He also is required to register as a sex offender and pay $250,000 in restitution.
After the sentencing, Morris was handcuffed and taken into custody, but his attorney told reporters he “sincerely apologized for his conduct.”
Cindy Clemishire
The charges were brought against him by Cindy Clemishire, a now 55-year-old woman whom he sexually molested numerous times in the 1980s. At the time, Morris was a traveling evangelist who was staying with the family in their Oklahoma home. According to the lawsuit, Morris first abused Clemishire when she was just 12, inviting her into his room in the middle of the night, then touching her breasts and feeling under her panties.
He told her, “Never tell anyone about this. It will ruin everything,” so she kept this secret until 1987, when she told her parents and church leaders. In response, Morris was required to go through a spiritual “restoration process,” although he returned to ministry soon after and the police never were contacted about the matter.
Clemishire first attempted to seek legal restitution about two decades ago, but negotiations fell apart when she refused to sign a nondisclosure agreement. She has publicly testified numerous times in favor of Trey’s Law over the past few months, which nullifies the use of NDAs in sexual abuse-related litigation. Her refusal to enter this restrictive legal contract has allowed her to gain the justice served this week against her abuser.
Communications between her and Morris’ counsel from the earlier litigation also revealed opposing counsel blamed Clemishire for the abuse.
A letter written by attorney J. Shelby Sharpe, who has served as counsel for SBC leader Paige Patterson after he was accused of concealing instances of sexual abuse dating back to the 1980s, suggested this in a 2007 letter. He wrote to Clemishire’s attorney, “It was your client who initiated inappropriate behavior by coming into my client’s bedroom and getting in bed with him, which my client should not have allowed to happen.”
When she came out publicly with accusations of abuse in June 2024, Morris stepped down from his position at Gateway Church. In a statement, he vaguely referenced “a moral failure” with a “young lady,” but did not come clean to the accusations at the time.
In a prepared statement she shared in court on Thursday, she reiterated the irrevocable damage Morris’ abuse did to her. Teary-eyed, she also explained clearly that children should not be held accountable for abuse that is done to them.
“There is no such thing as consent from a 12-year-old child. We were never in an ‘inappropriate relationship.’ I was not a ‘young lady’ but a child. You committed a crime against me.”
After the guilty plea, Clemishire was relieved that she finally achieved justice, saying, “This was 40 years in the making.”
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