Victim of megachurch pastor says church was aware of his crime
(CROSSWALK) – The woman who accused Gateway Church founder Robert Morris of sexually abusing her when she was 12 during the 1980s claimed that his church had been aware of his crime prior to conducting an investigation this week, which resulted in his resignation from the ministry. “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,” Cindy Clemishire, now 54, said in a statement released Tuesday night by her attorney Boz Tchividjian, The Christian Post reports.
“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. “At the very least, both the Gateway pastor and at least one elder had specific notice that I was sexually abused beginning when I was 12 years old. Gateway had the information but intentionally decided to embrace the false narrative Robert Morris wanted to believe.”
As Crosswalk Headlines previously reported, Gateway Church announced that Morris resigned as lead pastor after the board of elders retained a law firm to investigate the claim that he sexually abused Clemishire over three decades ago when she was just 12 years old. According to Clemishire, the abuse began on December 25, 1982, and went on for about four-and-a-half years.