The former pastor of one of the biggest churches in Texas now faces criminal charges over allegations of child sexual abuse that took place in the 1980s.
On Wednesday, a grand jury in Oklahoma indicted Gateway Church founder Robert Morris on five counts of lewd or indecent acts with a child.
He resigned from Gateway last year after an Oklahoma woman went public with her account of Morris molesting her starting when she was 12.
“After almost 43 years, the law has finally caught up with Robert Morris for the horrific crimes he committed against me as a child,” Cindy Clemishire said in a statement to the press on Wednesday.
Last June, on the abuse watchdog blog Wartburg Watch, Clemishire recounted how Morris stayed with her family while visiting Tulsa and how the young evangelist came into her room and touched her under her clothing. She said the incidents took place dozens of times over four years. Morris was in his early 20s and married.
As of Wednesday evening, neither Morris nor his attorney had made a public statement responding to the indictment. Morris previously referred to what happened as “inappropriate sexual behavior with a young lady” and said that “it was confessed and repented of.”
Morris follows a steady string of church leaders who have faced allegations brought to light through the #MeToo and #ChurchToo movements over the past decade. Such claims have resulted in many prominent pastors being removed from ministry—but few go onto face legal repercussions.
The mean age for victims who were abused as minors to disclose their abuse is in their 40s or 50s, so often the opportunity to involve law enforcement has passed. In Clemishire’s case, the statute of limitations is not applicable, according to the state attorney general, because Morris, who was a traveling preacher at the time, never lived in Oklahoma.
The chair of the elder board at Gateway said in a statement to the Dallas Morning News that the church is “grateful for the work of the justice system in holding abusers accountable for their actions” and that the elders “continue to pray for Cindy Clemishire and her family, for the members and staff of Gateway Church and for all those impacted by this terrible situation.”
An independent investigation commissioned by the multisite megachurch didn’t uncover additional victims but did result in the termination of church elders who either knew that the “sexual behavior” from Morris’s past involved a minor or who didn’t do enough to question it, according to a church announcement in November 2024.
Morris founded Gateway in 2000, and the church grew in size and influence over the decades, with the rise of popular charismatic musicians like its former worship leader Kari Jobe and Morris’s involvement as a spiritual advisor to President Donald Trump during his previous term.
Morris’s departure—as one of several Dallas-area pastors to prominently step down in scandal last summer—has left his church shaken. The Dallas Morning News reported attendance dropped 40 percent at its main Southlake campus in a matter of months, and the church continues to undergo a moment of reckoning.
The five charges against Morris, 63, carry a total sentence of up to 100 years in prison.
The Oklahoma attorney general said in a statement, “There can be no tolerance for those who sexually prey on children. This case is all the more despicable because the alleged perpetrator was a pastor who exploited his position. The victim in this case has waited far too many years for justice to be done.”
This is a breaking news story and will be updated.
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