The disgraced pastor of a Texas megachurch who served a a six-month stint for sexually abusing a toddler within the 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 response to Osage County Sheriff’s Capt. Matt Clark.
Morris should register as a intercourse offender and shall 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 mentioned in an announcement 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 lady is lastly going to be behind bars.”
Jeff Leach, a Dallas-based lawyer who represents Clemishire, now in her 50s, mentioned in an announcement 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 yr 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acts with a toddler for a four-year sample of sick abuse towards a Clemishire, of Kansas, when she was simply 12 years outdated.
Morris acquired 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 response to Oklahoma Lawyer Basic 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 Price 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 have been made public.
In an announcement launched Tuesday by one in all 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 fallacious. There isn’t any different phrase for it, and there’s no excuse for it. I’m deeply sorry,” Morris mentioned.
“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 way of civil courts, Leach mentioned.
“She rightfully seeks full accountability not just for Robert and the crimes he dedicated towards her as a younger youngster, but in addition for the opposite people who harbored him, lined for him, lied for him and even in some instances attacked Cindy on his behalf,” he mentioned.
Morris has been politically energetic and previously served on President Trump’s evangelical advisory board.
