OKLAHOMA CITY — An Oklahoma girl recalled a touring evangelist who preached at her circle of relatives’s church in Osage County greater than 40 years in the past.
The preacher, along side his spouse and son, ultimately befriended the girl’s circle of relatives and stayed of their house, she stated. That is when the girl alleged the sexual abuse started, in 1982 when she was once simply 12 years previous.
On Monday, former Texas megachurch pastor Robert Preston Morris, 63, surrendered to government in Osage County after being indicted on kid sexual abuse fees.
Right here are a few things to grasp in regards to the case:
Cindy Clemishire, Morris’ accuser, advised government that Morris’ abuse started on Christmas 1982 when he was once staying at her circle of relatives’s space at age 12 and persisted over the following 4 years.
The Related Press in most cases does no longer identify individuals who say they’ve been sexually assaulted except they arrive ahead publicly, as Clemishire, now 55, has performed.
In a commentary remaining week after the Oklahoma Legal professional Normal’s Administrative center introduced the costs, she stated: “After virtually 43 years, the regulation has in the end stuck up with Robert Morris for the horrific crimes he dedicated towards me as a kid. Now, it’s time for the prison machine to carry him responsible.”
Morris has no longer returned phone messages left at numbers related to him, and his lawyer, Mack Martin, declined to remark at the fees. Martin advised The Related Press that Morris will plead no longer to blame.
When requested in regards to the allegations remaining 12 months via The Christian Submit, Morris stated in a commentary to the e-newsletter that after he was once in his early 20s he was once “occupied with beside the point sexual habits with a tender woman in a house the place I used to be staying.”
“It was once kissing and petting and no longer sex, however it was once improper,” he stated within the commentary. “This habits took place on a number of events over the following couple of years.”
Morris was once indicted remaining week via Oklahoma’s multi-county grand jury, an investigative frame that meets in secret and is guided via the Oklahoma Legal professional Normal’s Administrative center. The indictment was once unsealed remaining week in Osage County.
He has been charged with 5 counts of lewd or indecent acts with a kid. He faces as much as two decades in jail for every of the 5 fees.
In keeping with the Legal professional Normal’s Administrative center, Oklahoma’s statute of barriers isn’t acceptable within the case as a result of Morris was once no longer a resident of Oklahoma.
Morris was once the longtime pastor of Gateway Church, a megachurch positioned within the Dallas-Fortress Price suburb of Southlake and based via Morris in 2000. The church has more than one places within the space and says greater than 100,000 other people attend every weekend.
Morris, who resigned remaining 12 months after Clemishire got here ahead together with her allegations, has been politically lively. He was once amongst the ones on former President Donald Trump’s evangelical advisory board, and the church hosted Trump on its Dallas campus in 2020 for a dialogue on race members of the family and the economic system.
The church stated in a commentary remaining week that its participants are praying for Clemishire and “all of the ones impacted via this horrible state of affairs.”
“We’re conscious about the movements being taken via the prison government in Oklahoma and are thankful for the paintings of the justice machine in retaining abusers in command of their movements,” the commentary stated.
