Clemishire Files Civil Lawsuit Against Robert Morris, Gateway Church

Timing of elders’ knowledge about her age is at issue.

Cindy Clemishire filed suit last week in Dallas County, Texas, against Gateway Church and its elders, plus founding pastor Robert Morris and his wife Deborah, for defamation, conspiracy, and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

Robert Morris, left / Cindy Clemishire, right (video screenshot)

Clemishire claims that when Morris declared he’d been “involved in inappropriate sexual behavior with a young lady” and claimed the Clemishire family had “graciously forgiven [him],” that he was making false and defamatory statements that had a tendency to harm or lower her reputation.

The lawsuit asserts that the Gateway defendants have benefited financially from Morris’s moral failures, having “made millions of dollars…preaching about sexual immorality and redemption all while concealing the true facts.”

Much of the lawsuit surrounds allegations of when the Gateway leadership knew the specifics of Morris’s actions, including Clemishire’s age. She was 12 and Morris was 22 when the abuse began.

According to Morris, he left vocational ministry in 1987 to seek “restoration” after Clemishire revealed his abuse. She claims he didn’t actually leave the ministry, and included a newspaper clipping from the September 9, 1988, edition of the Daily Register in Gainesville that referred to Morris as a “staff evangelist” at Shady Grove Church in Grand Prairie who was conducting Gospel meetings at an area church.

Clemishire also refutes claims that her family ever forgave Morris for his actions in 1989 when he claims to have sought their forgiveness.

In 2000, Morris founded Gateway Church.

In 2005, Clemishire emailed Morris to confront him about his abuse. She said received a response from then-elder Tom Lane. In it, Lane says that Morris “has been completely open with the Elders of Gateway Church about his past and specifically about his indiscretion with you.”

In February 2007, Morris’s attorney Shelby Sharpe, who represented him in response to Clemishire’s communications, sent an email to Clemishire’s attorney that blamed Clemishire, at least in part, for the abuse.

“It was your client who initiated inappropriate behavior by coming into my client’s bedroom and getting in bed with him, which my client should not have allowed to happen,” Sharpe wrote in the email included in the lawsuit.

Morris, who is trying to enforce an arbitration clause with the church over his retirement benefits, claims in his most recent court filings that Gateway’s board of elders received a copy of Clemishire’s legal demand letter in 2007 that referred to the sexual assaults beginning when she was just 12 years old

In August 2007, Lane wrote an email to some of the Gateway elders where he recounted a specially-called elder meeting relating to the sexual abuse.

In the note, Lane wrote that Morris had again retold the account of events and his period of restoration. The elders “felt strongly that this is a closed issue and does not need to be exposed by Robert.”

Then in 2011, anonymous emails from [email protected] were sent to Morris and the Gateway elders that raised the abuse issue and specifically mentioned that Clemishire was 12 years old when the abuse began.

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Clemishire asserts that no later than 2011, the Gateway elders knew that she was a child when Morris began sexually abusing her.

However, when Clemishire’s allegations became public in June 2024, the church issued a statement that acknowledged “inappropriate sexual behavior” with a “young lady.” A few days later, they issued statements claiming that their “prior understanding” was that “Morris’s extramarital relationship…was with a young lady and not abuse of a 12-year-old child.”

Later in the summer, church elders admitted their initial communication was “clearly incorrect.” They admitted Clemishire was a child and the relationship was actually sexual abuse of a child.

Elder Tra Wilbanks admitted that some individuals knew Clemishire was 12 while others did not. However, the second group knew enough to have asked more questions.

Clemishire’s lawsuit seeks damages for loss of her reputation, for mental anguish and psychological pain, and for exemplary damages because she claims the defendants acted with malice.

MinistryWatch reached out to Gateway, but a spokesperson declined to comment.

You can read more reporting about the events involving Morris and Gateway Church over the past year here.

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