The head of among the biggest megachurches in the United States, Robert Morris, has admitted guilt to molesting a young girl in Oklahoma during the 1980s period.
The pastor, sixty-four, entered a guilty plea on Thursday in Osage county district court on multiple charges of lewd or indecent acts with a child. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison, but as part of a plea deal will serve only six months in local jail.
He will register as a sex offender and pay $250,000 in restitution.
Context of the Legal Matter
The former minister established the church in the city of Southlake, Texas. He expanded it into one of the top 10 largest large churches in the US, with over twenty-five thousand attendees weekly.
The victim, fifty-five, the woman who came forward as the survivor of the abuse, was present in the courtroom as he admitted his guilt. In a written declaration she told him: “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 child. You committed a crime against me.”
Her sibling a family member also read a statement, saying: “You acted as if you were righteous, preaching from large platforms. As you concealed your true self, we’ve known you are simply a predator.”
The pastor stepped down from the church last year after the victim made her story known. She had devoted many years trying to hold her abuser accountable.
Details of the Abuse
The abuse began in 1982 when Morris, then 21, was a travelling evangelist. He was a guest of Clemishire’s family in their residence, where he invited the child into his bedroom.
The abuse continued for the following four years.
A leaked transcript of a conversation showed that in 2005, the pastor tried to bribe Clemishire into silence, saying to her to “put a price on it”.
Fall from Grace and Connections
Morris’s conviction signals a dramatic downfall for the minister. At his peak, he wrote multiple popular books and his teachings were broadcast around the world.
He also became a spiritual adviser to Donald Trump. He was part of the presidential advisory group during the first Trump presidency and was part of a campaign to organize religious voters for him in last year’s presidential campaign.
Trump also visited the church in 2020 where he commended Morris and his leadership as “wonderful individuals with a great reputation”.
