By LeoNardo Blair, Senior Reporter
Robert Morris, founding pastor of Gateway Church in Southlake, Texas, became indicted on five counts of lewd or incorrect acts with a baby by a multi-county huge jury in Oklahoma on Wednesday. The indictment stems from allegations made by Cindy Clemishire final June that he sexually abused her over multiple years within the 1980s, beginning when she became 12.
“In December 1982, Morris became a traveling evangelist visiting in Hominy with the family of the alleged sufferer, who became 12 at the time. The indictment alleges Morris’ sexual misconduct began that Christmas and continued over the following four years. In all, Morris faces five counts of lewd or incorrect acts to a baby,” an announcement from the Office of Oklahoma Attorney Overall Gentner Drummond shared with The Christian Put up on the costs towards 63-365 days-aged Morris, said.
“There also will doubtless be no tolerance for people who sexually prey on kids,” said Drummond, who as soon as served as Clemishire’s attorney as she sought to receive justice within the past. “This case is the overall more unsuitable since the alleged perpetrator became a pastor who exploited his discipline. The sufferer in this case has waited a long way too a few years for justice to be performed.”
Gentner’s place of job famed that the statute of obstacles isn’t any longer acceptable to the costs towards Morris because he became no longer a resident or inhabitant of Oklahoma at any time.
Reacting to the indictment, Clemishire, now a 54-365 days-aged grandmother who has been pushing to retain Morris to blame for a few years, said she is grateful for the indictment some 43 years later.
“After nearly 43 years, the laws has within the smash caught up with Robert Morris for the horrific crimes he committed towards me as a baby. Now, it is time for the lawful system to retain him to blame,” she said in an announcement to CP. “My family and I are deeply grateful to the authorities who have worked tirelessly to create in this closing date doubtless and stay hopeful that justice will within the smash prevail.”
Morris resigned from Gateway Church on June 18, 2024, correct days after Clemishire reported that he began sexually abusing her on Dec. 25, 1982. She said the abuse continued for four-and-a-half years earlier than it came to gentle. But Morris became later allowed to achieve to ministry.
When puzzled by CP about the allegations, Morris at the beginning keep confessed to being involved by “fallacious sexual behavior with a young girl” bigger than 35 years ago. He said he repented and became restored to ministry.
“After I became in my early twenties, I became involved by fallacious sexual behavior with a young girl in a apartment where I became staying. It became kissing and petting and no longer intercourse, nonetheless it became irascible. This behavior befell on a few times over the following few years,” Morris said.
“In March of 1987, this keep became dropped at gentle, and it became confessed and repented of. I submitted myself to the Elders of Shady Grove Church and the young girl’s father. They requested me to step out of ministry and receive counseling and freedom ministry, which I did. Since that time, I have walked in purity and accountability in this discipline,” Morris added.
Clemishire insisted to CP at the time, on the assorted hand, that she became no “young girl.”
“I became 12 years aged. I became a minute bit girl. A truly harmless minute girl. And he became introduced into our home. He and his wife, Debbie, and their minute boy, Josh, and relied on and preached at the church that my dad helped originate up after which began grooming all of us to achieve this, which took me decades to wrap my mind around as an grownup,” she said.
“It went on for a few years. He says there became no sexual intercourse, nonetheless he did contact every piece of my physique and inserted his fingers into me, which I perceive now is believed to be a form of rape by instrumentation. I became an harmless 12-365 days-aged minute girl who knew nothing about sexual behavior.”
Elders at Gateway Church also at the beginning keep told CP that Morris became transparent with them about his past and they believed he had been biblically restored to ministry. In their assertion asserting his resignation on June 18, 2024, on the assorted hand, the elders said Morris did no longer display camouflage that he had abused a 12-365 days-aged girl.
“Regretfully, earlier than Friday, June 14, [2024], the elders did no longer have the overall facts of the fallacious relationship between Morris and the sufferer, including her age at the time and the size of the abuse. The elders’ prior determining became that Morris’s extramarital relationship, which he had discussed repeatedly all the procedure by his ministry, became with ‘a young girl’ and no longer abuse of a 12-365 days-aged child,” the elders explained.
Gateway Church ensuing from this truth licensed an self ample investigation into the allegations towards Morris, and final November, Gateway Elder Tra Willbanks supplied that multiple elders were eliminated from the church as he presented an outline of the four-month internal investigation.
All nonetheless three Gateway elders, he said, had some info about Morris’ encounter with Clemishire and “did not place a query to extra.” Some, he said, allegedly knew that Clemishire became a baby when she became abused earlier than her going public.
“We now know that there had been elders and workers at Gateway who knew earlier than June 14, 2024, that Cindy became 12 at the time of the abuse,” Willbanks said. “Both groups are fundamentally irascible and simply can no longer and have to serene no longer be tolerated at Gateway Church.”
Contact: leoNardo.blair@christianpost.com Practice LeoNardo Blair on Twitter: @leoblair Practice LeoNardo Blair on Fb: LeoBlairChristianPost
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