The founder and ex-pastor of one of the largest churches in Texas will serve just six months of a ten-year suspended sentence after pleading guilty to child sexual abuse. The conviction stemmed from a decades-old incident. Robert Morris, the 64-year-old former pastor of Gateway Church in Dallas, resigned from his post last year.
Morris appeared before Oklahoma Judge Cindy Pickerill and admitted to five felony counts of lewd acts with a child. According to a press release from the Oklahoma Attorney General’s Office, he will have his ten-year sentence suspended. Still, he will be required to serve the six months of incarceration in an Oklahoma county jail.
Texas Megachurch Pastor Robert Morris (FILE PHOTO: Gateway Church)
Morris will also be required to register as a sex offender and will owe more than $200,000 in restitution to his victim, 54-year-old Cindy Clemishire, who was just 12 years old at the time of the sexual abuse.
Clemishire’s allegation of sexual abuse at the hands of Morris in 1982 was made public by a religious publication, The Wartburg Watch, on June 14, 2024. Days later, Morris stepped down from his role as senior pastor of Gateway Church. The Southlake-based Megachurch has added 11 additional locations in Texas since its founding by Morris.
US President Donald Trump appeared onstage with Pastor Robert Morris, during a roundtable with faith leaders, law enforcement officials, and small business owners at Gateway Church Dallas Campus in Dallas, Texas, on June 11, 2020. (Photo by Nicholas Kamm / AFP) (Photo by NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP via Getty Images)
According to the report in The Wartburg Watch, Clemishire recounted the events leading up to her abuse at the hands of Morris, saying her family met the former pastor at a youth revival in Tulsa. He was a 20-year-old married evangelist; she was merely 11 years old. Morris would go on to regularly preach in her hometown church of Hominy, Oklahoma.
According to Clemishire, the young pastor, his wife Debbie, and their infant son would often stay in her family’s home. The relationship between Morris and the young victim would change on Christmas night in 1982 when Clemishire says Morris asked her to visit her room. Clemishire described in horrific detail the sexual abuse that would go on for more than four years.
Clemishire would keep the sexual abuse incidents secret until 1987, when she shared the details of her abuse with her parents and church elders. The police were not notified at the time. According to The Wartburg Watch, in 2005, Clemishire sought a $50,000 financial settlement from Morris to compensate for counselling, but would not sign a non-disclosure agreement requested by the pastor at the time.
After the publication of Clemishire’s sexual abuse at the hands of the pastor, an Oklahoma grand jury would later indict the former church leader in March 2025 on four counts of Lewd or Indecent Acts to a Child. The charges contained in the indictment would cover separate instances of abuse beginning in 1982.
Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond commented on the guilty plea entered by Morris this week, saying, “There can be no tolerance for those who sexually prey on children. This case is all the more despicable because the perpetrator was a pastor who exploited his position of trust and authority. The victim in this case has waited far too many years for this day.”
Randy Clark is a 32-year veteran of the United States Border Patrol. Before his retirement, he served as the Division Chief for Law Enforcement Operations, directing operations for nine Border Patrol Stations within the Del Rio, Texas, Sector. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) @RandyClarkBBTX.
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