Robert Morris, the founder and former pastor of one of the largest megachurches in the United States, has been released from an Oklahoma jail after serving six months for sexually abusing a 12-year-old girl in the 1980s. The 64-year-old, who started Texas's Gateway church and once served as a spiritual adviser to Donald Trump, pleaded guilty in October to five counts of lewd or indecent acts with a child.
Under a plea agreement, Morris was sentenced to 10 years in prison, with all but six months suspended. He was also ordered to register as a sex offender and pay $270,000 in restitution. He was released early on Tuesday, having completed his sentence, and will now serve nine and a half years of probation under supervision.
The abuse came to light when Cindy Clemishire, the victim, publicly identified herself in 2024. She said the abuse began in 1982 when she was 12 and Morris was 21, while he was staying at her family's home in Oklahoma as a travelling preacher. In a statement after his guilty plea, she said: 'There is no such thing as consent from a 12-year-old child.'
Morris resigned as senior pastor of Gateway Church in 2024 after Clemishire went public. He was indicted in March 2025 on the charges to which he later pleaded guilty. During Trump's first term, Morris served on an evangelical advisory board, and Trump attended a roundtable at Gateway Church in June 2020.
