Authorities charged the founder and former senior pastor of one of the largest megachurches in the U.S. with five counts of child sexual abuse Wednesday, according to a press release.
Robert Preston Morris, 63, faces “five counts of lewd or indecent acts with a child stemming from incidents that date back to the 1980s,” the Office of Republican Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond announced.
Morris committed the acts against a female who was then a minor in Osage County between Dec. 25, 1982, and Jan. 24, 1985, according to the indictment. The alleged victim was identified in the indictment as C.C., born in 1970.
Morris visited the minor’s family in Hominy, Osage County as a traveling evangelist starting in 1982, the attorney general’s office said. The alleged victim was then 12 years old. Morris resigned in the summer of 2024 as the senior pastor of a megachurch in Southlake, Texas, called Gateway Church, according to Drummond’s office.
He was on the evangelical executive advisory board to President Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, according to Politico.
The Florida-based law firm Boz Law P.A. named the alleged victim as Cindy Clemishire and identified her as one of its clients. “After almost 43 years, the law has finally caught up with Robert Morris for the horrific crimes he committed against me as a child,” Clemishire said in response to Morris’s indictment, according to Boz Law P.A. “Now, it is time for the legal system to hold him accountable. My family and I are deeply grateful to the authorities who have worked tirelessly to make this day possible and remain hopeful that justice will ultimately prevail.”
Cindy Clemishire, of Hominy, first went public with the allegations June 14, 2024 in The Wartburg Watch, claiming that the alleged abuse went on in Oklahoma and Morris’ home in Texas until 1987. (RELATED: REPORT: Texas Megachurch Sued As Women Allege Church Encourage Sexual Abuse By Pastor)
Shortly after, Morris admitted to being “involved in inappropriate sexual behavior with a young lady” without referring to to the age of the girl, WFAA previously reported.
Clemishire demanded “some type of restitution” from Morris in September 2005, with Morris asking her to name her price so that she would not go public, according to a transcript obtained by NBC News.
“There can be no tolerance for those who sexually prey on children,” said Drummond. “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.”
Morris resigned in June 2024, Gateway Church said. His resignation came around the time when Clemishire made the allegations public.
The church added that it hired a law firm to “conduct a thorough and independent inquiry so that the facts can be understood.”
Gateway Church — which Morris founded in 2000 — said Wednesday it was praying for Clemishire and “all of those impacted by this terrible situation,” The Associated Press reported.
