Gateway Church Robert Morris leaves prison

Hours after his release from the Osage County Jail in Oklahoma on Tuesday, following his completion of a six-month sentence for sexually abusing Cindy Clemishire for multiple years starting when she was 12 within the Eighties, Gateway Church founder Robert Morris publicly asked for her forgiveness and reflected on the time he spent behind bars.

In an announcement shared with The Christian Post by his attorney, William B. Mateja, the Southlake, Texas, megachurch founder revealed that his time spent in jail helped him realize much more how mistaken he was for abusing Clemishire.

“I would like to talk on to Cindy Clemishire and her family. What I did to Cindy many years ago was mistaken. There is not any other word for it, and there isn’t any excuse for it. I’m deeply sorry. I actually have carried the burden of that mistaken for a really very long time, and I’m grateful — genuinely grateful — that the Clemishires had the courage to bring this into the sunshine,” Morris said in his statement.

“It is simply in the sunshine that things can truly be addressed and healed. Many years ago, I sought their forgiveness privately, and as Cindy’s father recently noted, he prolonged that grace to me — a grace I didn’t deserve and have never taken with no consideration. I ask again, publicly, and sincerely, for the forgiveness of Cindy and her entire family. Whatever healing lies ahead for them, I pray for it with all my heart.”

Responding to Morris’ statement Tuesday, Clemishire told CP that she forgave Morris an extended time ago and hopes his remorse following his time in jail is real.

“I forgave Robert Morris a few years ago, and forgiveness is something I proceed to walk out — sometimes every day, as needed. Forgiveness, nonetheless, doesn’t erase the reality of what happened or the lifelong impact it has had on me,” she said in a written statement.

“His words today are, in some ways, what any victim would hope to listen to. But it remains to be deeply disheartening that those words weren’t spoken on to me and my family on October 2nd, when he stood before the court and pleaded guilty. That moment mattered,” she continued.

“While I hope his statement reflects real remorse, I cannot know whether those words got here from his heart or were fastidiously prepared for him. What I do know is that this: what happened to me on December 25, 1982, once I was 12 years old, was not a relationship — it was against the law. And it modified the course of my life ceaselessly.”

Morris was indicted in March 2025 on five counts of lewd or indecent acts with a toddler by a multi-county grand jury in Oklahoma in connection together with his actions against the now 55-year-old Clemishire, who reported that Morris began sexually abusing her on Dec. 25, 1982, when she was 12, and continued with the abuse for four-and-a-half years after that. At the time, Morris was a traveling evangelist. 

He pleaded guilty last October to just accept responsibility, in keeping with his attorney Bill Mateja.

“He simply accepted responsibility for his crime from the mid-Eighties and pled guilty. He pled guilty because he wanted to just accept responsibility for his conduct. While he believes that he long since accepted responsibility within the eyes of God — and that Gateway Church was a manifestation of that acceptance — he readily accepted responsibility within the eyes of the law by virtue of his guilty plea,” Mateja told CP in an earlier statement after Morris was sentenced.

Morris, who was also ordered to pay $270,000 in restitution, still faces an ongoing defamation lawsuit from Clemishire together with Gateway Church.

In her defamation lawsuit, which has been halted pending a mandamus review, Clemishire and her father, Jerry Lee Clemishire, are in search of greater than $1 million in damages, alleging that Morris and Gateway Church leaders publicly mischaracterized the abuse she suffered as a consensual “relationship” with a “young lady” as an alternative of the sexual assault of a toddler after the abuse was made public in 2024.

The petition for mandamus review was filed on Nov. 14 by attorneys for Gateway Church and their independent elders John D. “Tra” Willbanks, Kenneth W. Fambro II and Dane Minor. It got here after Dallas County District Court Judge Emily Tobolowsky rejected a motion from the church and elders to dismiss the Clemishires’ lawsuit, citing the ecclesiastical abstention doctrine, which holds that courts lack jurisdiction over matters of faith.

In her statement to CP Tuesday, Clemishire insisted that Morris and Gateway Church profited from the mischaracterization of her abuse.

“For many years, a false narrative was allowed to exist — one which minimized the reality and helped construct a platform and following, while my life was left in pieces. That reality can’t be neglected,” she said.

“My healing journey is ongoing and will likely be for the remaining of my life. But today isn’t nearly me — it’s about truth being acknowledged, and about accountability finally going down.”

She thanked Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond, District Attorney Gayland Gieger, and lead investigator Kylie Turner for helping to bring Morris to justice.

“Their commitment ensured that what was hidden for therefore long was finally brought into the sunshine,” she said. My hope moving forward is that this case helps create space for other survivors to be heard, believed and guarded — and that the reality isn’t again rewritten on the expense of a victim’s life.”

In addition to in search of Clemishire’s forgiveness, the Texas megachurch founder also apologized to the Body of Christ for the “damage” he caused.

“I’m sorry for the pain, the confusion and the damage that has come upon so many believers due to my actions. That is a weight I carry, and it is true that I carry it,” Morris wrote.

“I actually have thought an amazing deal about what it signifies that this was delivered to a legal resolution. At first, that was a tough thing to handle. But the more time I spent in that jail cell, the more clearly I could see that what the Clemishire family set in motion was an act of integrity, and that it gave me something I needed — a moment of true reckoning within the eyes of the law, not only in my very own heart or before God,” Morris continued. “It opened my eyes to things I had not fully seen.”

Morris also expressed because of the Osage County Jail staff for treating him with “professionalism, fairness, and real decency, as they did for all inmates.”

He also expressed because of his support system, including his wife, Debbie.

“As I look ahead, I do not need a grand announcement to make about what comes next. What I actually have is gratitude — for Debbie, for my family, for individuals who loved me once I was hardest to like, and for the mercy that I don’t deserve but have been given,” he noted.

“I intend to live quietly and with integrity, and to be the form of husband, father, grandfather, and man who reflects that mercy in how he treats others. Scripture has at all times been my anchor, and it stays so now. The apostle Paul wrote in Galatians, ‘Do not be deceived: God can’t be mocked. A person reaps what he sows,’” he added.

“That verse has been with me through these months. The harvest from seeds I sowed way back in sin was real, and it was just. But I feel equally in what follows — that once we turn, and once we sow in a different way, a special harvest is feasible. That isn’t wishful pondering. That is the promise of grace. I’m counting on it, and I’m committed to living as much as it.”

© The Christian Post