Texas megachurch pastor Robert Morris is free after 6 months in an Oklahoma jail for child sex abuse

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — The founder of a Texas megachurch who pleaded guilty to sexually abusing a child in the 1980s was released Tuesday after serving six months in an Oklahoma jail.

Robert Preston Morris, 64, was released just after midnight, said Osage County Sheriff’s Capt. Matt Clark.

Morris pleaded guilty last year to five counts of lewd or indecent acts with a child as part of a plea agreement under which he received a 10-year suspended sentence with the first six months to be served in the Osage County Jail.

The abuse began in 1982 when the victim was 12 and Morris was a traveling evangelist staying in Hominy, Oklahoma, with her family, according to Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond, whose office prosecuted the case.

Morris was the senior pastor of Gateway Church in the Dallas-Fort Worth suburb of Southlake, where he led one of the nation’s largest megachurches until June 2024 when — faced with the victim’s allegations — he resigned. He was indicted last year by an Oklahoma grand jury.

Morris must register as a sex offender and will be supervised by Texas authorities via interstate compact. He also was ordered to pay his costs of incarceration, including any medical expenses, and restitution to the victim.

The victim, Cindy Clemishire, who is now in her 50s, did not immediately respond Tuesday to a request for comment, but said in a statement when Morris was sentenced that “justice has finally been served, and the man who manipulated, groomed and abused me as a 12-year-old innocent girl is finally going to be behind bars.” The Associated Press typically does not name people who say they have been sexually assaulted unless they come forward publicly, as Clemishire did.

In a statement released Tuesday by one of Morris’ attorneys, Bill Mateja, Morris apologized to Clemishire and her family and praised them for coming forward.

“What I did to Cindy decades ago was wrong. There is no other word for it, and there is no excuse for it. I am deeply sorry,” Morris said. “I have carried the weight of that wrong for a very long time, and I am grateful — genuinely grateful — that the Clemishires had the courage to bring this into the light.

“Many years ago, I sought their forgiveness privately, and as Cindy’s father recently noted, he extended that grace to me — a grace I did not deserve and have never taken for granted.”

Gateway Church was founded by Morris in 2000. He has been politically active and formerly served on President Donald Trump’s evangelical advisory board. The church hosted Trump on its Dallas campus in 2020 for a discussion on race relations and the economy.