The disgraced pastor of a Texas megachurch who served a a six-month stint for sexually abusing a toddler within the Nineteen Eighties was launched from jail Tuesday.
Robert Preston Morris, 64, was let out simply after midnight from the Oklahoma jail the place he was sentenced to final October, in line with Osage County Sheriff’s Capt. Matt Clark.
Morris should register as a intercourse offender and will probably be supervised by Texas authorities. He additionally was ordered to pay his prices of incarceration, together with any medical bills, and restitution to the sufferer.
The sufferer, Cindy Clemishire, didn’t instantly reply Tuesday to The Submit’s request for remark, however stated in a press release when Morris was sentenced that “justice has lastly been served, and the person who manipulated, groomed and abused me as a 12-year-old harmless woman is lastly going to be behind bars.”
Jeff Leach, a Dallas-based lawyer who represents Clemishire, now in her 50s, stated in a press release they’re “heartened to know that he (Morris) nonetheless has almost ten years of probation in addition to a lifetime forward of being publicly registered as a intercourse offender.”
Morris was indicted final 12 months by an Oklahoma grand jury. He later pleaded responsible to 5 counts of lewd or indecent acts with a toddler for a four-year sample of sick abuse towards a Clemishire, of Kansas, when she was simply 12 years previous.
Morris obtained a 10-year suspended sentence with the primary six months to be served within the Osage County Jail.
The horrific acts of abuse started in 1982, when Morris was a touring evangelist staying in Hominy, Oklahoma with Clemishire’s household, in line with Oklahoma Lawyer Common Gentner Drummond, whose workplace prosecuted the case.
Within the intervening the years Morris rose in fame and fortune — founding the Gateway Church within the Dallas-Fort Value suburb of Southlake in 2000, which grew to become one of many nation’s largest megachurches.
However the creep resigned as its senior pastor in June 2024, when the accusations of abuse had been made public.
In a press release launched Tuesday by one in every of Morris’ attorneys, Invoice Mateja, he apologized to Clemishire and her household and praised them for coming ahead.
“What I did to Cindy a long time in the past was flawed. There is no such thing as a different phrase for it, and there’s no excuse for it. I’m deeply sorry,” Morris stated.
“A few years in the past, I sought their forgiveness privately, and as Cindy’s father just lately famous, he prolonged that grace to me — a grace I didn’t deserve and have by no means taken as a right.”
Clemishire, in the meantime, plans to proceed to hunt justice by civil courts, Leach stated.
“She rightfully seeks full accountability not just for Robert and the crimes he dedicated towards her as a younger baby, but in addition for the opposite people who harbored him, lined for him, lied for him and even in some circumstances attacked Cindy on his behalf,” he stated.
Morris has been politically energetic and previously served on President Trump’s evangelical advisory board.
