Morris admitted in court to felony charges of lewd and indecent acts with a child. He was sentenced to 10 years, but will only serve six months in jail and spend the remaining time on probation.
Robert Morris, the 64-year-old founder of Gateway Church in Texas, has pleaded guilty to s*xually abusing a 12-year-old girl in Oklahoma over four decades ago.
Morris admitted in court to felony charges of lewd and indecent acts with a child. He was sentenced to 10 years, but will only serve six months in jail and spend the remaining time on probation.
He must also register as a s*x offender and pay $250,000 in restitution, per BBC.
The victim, Cindy Clemishere, now 55, was in court as Morris entered his plea. Through tears, she told him his abuse had “rippled into every part of her life.”
She also rejected Morris’ earlier claims that it was a “moral failure” with a “young lady,” saying firmly: “There was no such thing as consent from a 12-year-old child. I was not a young lady. I was a child.”
The abuse happened in the 1980s while Morris, then a traveling evangelist, was living with her family in Hominy, Oklahoma. Clemishere said she reported the abuse to her parents and church leaders in 1987, but no one called the police.
Morris, who founded Gateway Church in 2000, grew it into one of the largest megachurches in the US, with more than 100,000 members across nine locations. He also served on Donald Trump’s evangelical advisory committee in 2016.
Morris stepped down from Gateway last year after Clemishere went public with her story.
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