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The head of one of the largest large congregations in the US, the pastor, has pleaded guilty to sexually abusing a 12-year-old girl in Oklahoma during the 1980s.

Morris, 64, pleaded guilty on that day in Osage county district court on five criminal counts of inappropriate acts with a child. He was sentenced to 10 years in custody, but under an agreement will serve only six months in county jail.

He will be listed as a registered offender and be required to pay a quarter million dollars in compensation.

Background of the Case

The disgraced pastor established Gateway church in Southlake, the state of Texas. He expanded it into one of the top 10 largest large churches in the United States, with over twenty-five thousand visitors weekly.

Cindy Clemishire, fifty-five, the woman who came forward as the victim of Morris’s sexual abuse, was present in the courtroom as he admitted his guilt. In a prepared statement she stated: “It is impossible to have consent from a child of twelve. We were never in an ‘inappropriate relationship’. I was not a ‘young lady’ but a minor. You committed a crime against me.”

Her sibling a family member also read a statement, saying: “You acted as if you were righteous, speaking from big pulpits. As you hid behind your facade, we’ve known you are nothing but a predator.”

The pastor stepped down from the church last year after the victim went public. She had devoted many years trying to hold her abuser accountable.

Specifics of the Abuse

The abuse began in 1982 when the pastor, then 21, was a itinerant preacher. He stayed with Clemishire’s family in their home, where he asked the child into his bedroom.

The molestation persisted for the following four years.

A leaked transcript of a phone call revealed that in 2005, Morris tried to bribe the victim into not speaking out, saying to her to “put a price on it”.

Downfall and Associations

Morris’s conviction marks a remarkable fall for the minister. At his peak, he authored several bestselling books and his sermons were broadcast around the world.

He also served as a spiritual adviser to Donald Trump. He joined the White House spiritual advisory committee during the first Trump presidency and was involved in an effort to mobilize religious voters for him in the recent election.

Trump also visited the church in 2020 where he praised the pastor and his senior team as “great people with a great reputation”.