The alleged sexual abuse victim of Robbert Morris, the founder of Gateway Church, has come forward and asserted that the Texas megachurch was aware of his crime and demanded a search for more victims.
Knewz.com has learned that the noted pastor, who served as the “spiritual advisor” to former President Donald Trump, announced his resignation on Tuesday, June 18, following the scandal.
The Gateway Church wrote while announcing Morris’s resignation that they had no idea about his alleged crimes.
However, Cindy Clemishire, the victim, responded by saying that the church leadership was aware of the incidents as she wrote an email directly to the pastor’s Gateway Church mail address in 2005.
She first went public with her accusations against Morris when she spoke to The Wartburg Watch, a blog dedicated to uncovering problematic issues and instances of abuse within the church, on June 14.
She told the organization that Morris first molested her on December 25, 1982, when she was a 12-year-old, which began a pattern of sexual abuse that lasted four and a half years.
Shortly after the incident became well-known, Morris shared a statement with the outlet The Christian Post confessing to the crime, although he described 12-year-old Clemishire as “a young lady.”
“When I was in my early twenties, I was involved in inappropriate sexual behavior with a young lady in a home where I was staying. It was kissing and petting and not intercourse, but it was wrong. This behavior happened on several occasions over the next few years,” Morris told the outlet.
“In March of 1987, this situation was brought to light, and it was confessed and repented of. I submitted myself to the Elders of Shady Grove Church and the young lady’s father. They asked 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 area.”
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Clemishire told The Wartburg Watch that she and her family met Morris during a youth revival in 1981 when he was a 20-year-old traveling evangelist married to Debbie Morris, his current wife.
“He would often stay at her home and sometimes bring his wife, Debbie, and their little boy, Josh. Robert and Debbie Morris quickly became family friends, and Cindy viewed them as safe and friendly. Their families would often go on trips with each other,” the blog noted, based on Clemishire’s accounts of the incidents.
On Christmas 1982, the night of the first incident, Morris asked 12-year-old Clemishire to visit him in his room.
“She thought nothing of visiting a family friend in their bedroom. He told her to lie down on her back and touched her stomach. He told her to close her eyes. Then he touched her breasts and felt under her panties.”
She did not tell anyone about the incident at the time because Morris had allegedly warned her it would “ruin everything” if she did.
She told the blog that Morris started attempting to have intercourse with her after she turned sixteen. “Once, he was fixing a vanity in his home and held up a screw and asked Cindy if she wanted to “do this.” By this time, Morris was a pastor at Shady Grove Church, which would eventually become Gateway Church-Grand Prarie Campus,” the blog read.
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In his version of events, Morris told The Christian Post that he and his wife had met with Clemishire’s family and asked for forgiveness, “and they graciously forgave me.”
However, she told the blog that Debbie Morris had instead called her to tell her that she “forgave her” for the alleged sexual abuse committed by her husband.
Furthermore, Morris’s attorneys implied that the molestation was her fault for being “flirtatious” when she tried to file a civil lawsuit in 2005, something she has also mentioned in a recently released statement.
While the Texas megachurch claimed to have no idea about the molestation accusations against Morris before the scandal became public in 2024, a statement released by Clemishire via her attorney Boz Tchividjian shows that the church leadership has been aware of the incidents since 2005.
“The leadership at Gateway received actual notice of this crime in 2005 when I sent an email directly to Robert Morris’ Gateway email address. Former Gateway elder, Tom Lane, received and responded to my email, acknowledging that the sexual abuse began on December 25, 1982, when I was 12 years old,” read her statement, which was shared on X on June 19.
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“At the very least, both the Gateway pastor and at least one elder had specific notice that I was sexually abused beginning when I was 12 years old. Gateway had the information but intentionally decided to embrace the false narrative Robert Morris wanted them to believe.”
“Now that they have allegedly just learned that he was being untruthful, why limit the investigation to his conduct between 1982-1987. Why not expand the investigation to his entire tenure at Gateway Church?” her statement added.
Clemishire also responded to Morris calling her a “young lady” in his confession in an interview with The Christian Post on June 15, saying that she was “appalled.”
“I was 12 years old. I was a little girl. A very innocent little girl. And he was brought into our home. He and his wife, Debbie, and their little boy, Josh, and trusted and preached at the church that my dad helped start and then began grooming all of us to do this, which took me decades to wrap my brain around as an adult,” she told the outlet.
“He says there was no sexual intercourse, but he did touch every part of my body and inserted his fingers into me, which I understand now is considered a form of rape by instrumentation. I was an innocent 12-year-old little girl who knew nothing about sexual behavior.”
The post Accuser Says Megachurch Knew of Pastor’s Crime, Demands Church Launch Search for More Victims of Ex-Trump Adviser appeared first on Knewz.
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Author: Samyarup Chowdhury
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