A day after being indicted on five counts of lewd or indecent acts with a child by a multi-county grand jury in Oklahoma, the bond for disgraced Gateway Church founder Robert Morris was set at $50,000 on Thursday as he faces a possible 100 years maximum in prison if convicted on all counts.
The indictment stems from allegations made by 54-year-old grandmother Cindy Clemishire last June that the Southlake, Texas, megachurch founder sexually abused her over multiple years in the 1980s, beginning when she was 12.
Current penalties in Oklahoma for lewd acts or indecent acts with a child under 16 committed by an adult is three to 20 years in prison and at least 25 years in prison if the child is under 12. Repeat offenders can be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
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The Oklahoma Attorney General’s Office told The Christian Post that since the charges against Morris stemmed more than 35 years ago, his punishment would be limited by the law in effect at the time.
“At that time, the range of punishment was 1-20 years in prison. These other restrictions were not in effect in the law that existed at the time of Morris’ alleged crimes,” explained Carrie Burkhart, deputy press secretary for Oklahoma’s Office of the Attorney General.
While a date has not yet been set for Morris’ initial court appearance, he is expected to surrender to authorities early next week. He will also have to surrender his passport.
Oklahoma places a “big incentive” for defendants to accept a plea bargain, according to Tulsa-based criminal defense attorney Kevin Adams. He writes that if the defendant proceeds to trial and is convicted, the “custom of most judges is to order the sentences to run consecutively (one after the other).”
In Morris’ case, if he were to receive a maximum of 20 years on all five counts and a judge ordered them served consecutively, he could face up to 100 years in prison. If all five sentences were to be served concurrently, he would face up to 20 years in prison.
In a statement Wednesday, Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond, who previously served as Clemishire’s attorney, described the case against 63-year-old Morris as “despicable.”
“In December 1982, Morris was a traveling evangelist visiting in Hominy with the family of the alleged victim, who was 12 at the time. The indictment alleges Morris’ sexual misconduct began that Christmas and continued over the next four years. In all, Morris faces five counts of lewd or indecent acts to a child,” the OAG’s office stated Wednesday.
“There can be no tolerance for those who sexually prey on children. 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,” Drummond added.
Board-certified civil trial attorney Spencer T. Kuvin of GOLDLAW, who represented victims of late financier Jeffrey Epstein and is currently representing 10 victims for civil lawsuits against a former youth pastor at Duluth Vineyard Church, said churches should treat the news of Morris’ indictment as a warning to become more vigilant against abuse.
“Churches should be focused on training and educating their leadership to be sensitive and alert to any potential for inappropriate activities. Oftentimes, in the religious setting, leaders will excuse what appears to be inappropriate behavior and hope that it goes away or does not continue to occur. Burying your head in the sand and failing to address problems seriously will almost always result in a tragedy,” Kuvin said in response to a series of questions from CP.
He said that Morris’ indictment didn’t come as a surprise for him despite being committed long ago because society has “determined that some crimes are so heinous that they have no statute of limitations for prosecution.”
“Churches that face issues regarding abuse by leadership, or even members, should search out organizations that can help them investigate the extent of the abuse and offer full and complete support to the victims of the abuse. The accused perpetrator should immediately be separated from any and all activities with the church until the full investigation is complete,” he advised.
“It is important to understand that no one should be beyond criticism and review. Oftentimes we see in the religious setting that the harmful abuse occurs for years because people do not want to ‘believe’ that this person or that person could commit such awful acts. What we find in these cases is that unfortunately it is often those that are closest to us, that we can even trust the most, who end up betraying us,” he added.
Gateway Church officials stated that they were unaware of all the facts last June when Morris resigned after Clemishire went public with her allegations. She insisted, however, that she had confronted Morris in 2005, according to selected emails she shared with CP.
“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,” Clemishire said in a statement released by her attorney Boz Tchividjian.
“Again in 2007, my then attorney Gentner Drummond (the current Attorney General of Oklahoma) sent a letter to Robert Morris with the hope that he would help reimburse me for the thousands of dollars I had expended in counseling as a result of this abuse. His attorney acknowledged the dates as well and then attempted to blame me for the abuse,” she insisted.
Morris reportedly accused her of attempting to blackmail him, then asked her to name her price after she demanded he pay for what he had done to her as a child. Clemishire ultimately said she wanted Morris to pay $2 million in restitution to help pay for her counseling and other services, but he refused to offer any assistance unless she signed a non-disclosure agreement.
When asked if Morris would have been wiser to help Clemishire back then, Kuvin said it would have been helpful but not enough to settle the crime.
“Agreeing to help victims is always a good start, but this should not be the end of any help. Merely paying for someone to obtain counseling without some measure of justice and public acknowledgement by the church for the abuse that occurred, is hollow. Victims want everyone to believe and support them, as well as take action against the person who committed these crimes,” Kuvin said.
“Sadly, in this type of environment some people will end up siding with the abuser and accuse the victims of lies. It takes a huge amount of bravery and resolve to come forward, especially in a religious environment. The overwhelmingly vast majority of these accusations are truthful. No one wants to voluntarily put themselves through this process if it did not actually occur to them.”
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