EXCLUSIVE: Robert Morris facing criminal investigation in Oklahoma

The disgraced pastor and child predator is being investigated for his molestation of Cindy Clemishire--in a state with no statute of limitations for such depravity.

Robert Morris (screenshot via CBS News)

For the better part of this year, one of the biggest stories that wasn’t related to the presidential election was the downfall of one of America’s most prominent pastors, Robert Morris. In case you missed it, Morris, founding pastor of one of America’s most influential churches, Gateway Church in Southlake, Texas—a suburb of the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex—fell fast and fell hard this past summer when he was exposed as a child predator.

In 1982, when Morris was an up-and-coming youth evangelist, he began grooming and molesting then 12-year-old Cindy Clemishire at her home in Hominy, Oklahoma—an outer suburb of Tulsa. It proved to be the start of a long nightmare for Cindy. While the abuse only ended four years later, Morris’ efforts to cover up his depravity continued for another four decades. Through it all, he told anyone who would listen that he had merely had “moral failure” with ‘a young lady.” As this story went, he was cleared to return to ministry by his elders at Shady Grove Church, a charismatic megachurch in another Metroplex suburb, Grand Prairie. He kept up this line when he founded Gateway in 2000; Gateway absorbed Shady Grove in 2013.

Morris’ deceit finally caught up with him in June after Clemishire finally found someone willing to listen to her—Dee Parsons of Wartburg Watch. Morris tried to spin the same lies to the general public that he’d spun to those close to him for four decades. When it became apparent that wasn’t going to fly, he resigned.

Morris would have had us believe that he had merely sinned. But any right-thinking person knows that this wasn’t a sin. On the weekend before Election Day, Gateway formally acknowledged what any right-thinking person following this story has known—it was a crime. Gateway also revealed that Morris and those who helped cover up his deceit at Gateway are now the subjects of a very active criminal investigation. And now, this writer can exclusively report who is leading said investigation.

For most of the summer and fall, one of Gateway’s elders, Tra Willbanks, has been the de facto face of Gateway’s board of elders, delivering updates to the church on its internal investigation into Morris’ depravities. At both services held on the weekend before Election Day, Willbanks took the podium to reveal a “summary” of that investigation, conducted by the law firm Haynes Boone. Watch the message he delivered that Sunday here.

Willbanks revealed that for many years, Morris had told anyone who would listen that in his early 20s, he had been unfaithful to his wife, Debbie. As this story went, in the late 1980s, Morris confessed his “sin” to “apostolic leaders” at Shady Grove. He then stood down from all ministry for two years, before “those same apostolic leaders” cleared his return. Willbanks, an 18-year member of Gateway, said that he was one of many people who “simply believed (Morris’s) version of the story”—that it was a “sexual affair” with “a consenting adult.”

By now, most of us know that within hours of Cindy going public, Gateway churned out a now-infamous statement claiming that he had merely had a “moral failure” with a “young lady.” Willbanks formally repudiated that statement—or at least, condemned it in the strongest terms we’ve seen yet from anyone associated with Gateway. He said that statement was crafted at Morris’ direction in an effort to “minimize” his actions in “a final attempt to conceal the truth.” Within 48 hours, Willbanks and other elders were able to verify “critical elements of Cindy’s story” and concluded that Morris had been lying for over 40 years, including the entire quarter-century of Gateway’s existence. Morris responded to their demand for a meeting by offering his immediate resignation.

Haynes Boone amassed 650 gigabytes of data over the next few months as part of its investigation into Morris’ past conduct, as well as what Gateway staffers knew and when they knew it. The investigation concluded that a number of Gateway elders and employees over the years knew that Cindy was most assuredly not a young lady when Morris molested her, and had known it before June 2024. We already knew that at least some Gateway elders knew as early as 2005 that the abuse began when Cindy was 12 years old. A number of other elders and staffers knew about the allegations and should have asked more questions—but didn’t. Willbanks said that those in either category had engaged in behavior that was “fundamentally wrong and cannot and will not be tolerated” at Gateway. Based on that standard, anyone in either of those categories who was still associated with Gateway had been “removed.” He didn’t elaborate. However, according to posts on the victim advocate page “Justice for Cindy Clemishire,” within hours of Willbanks addressing the church on Saturday—if not earlier—three Gateway ministers had been fired, while a fourth, executive pastor and former worship leader Thomas Miller, resigned rather than face certain firing.

Willbanks then revealed that this was merely the tip of the iceberg. He said that he couldn’t share further details due to a raft of pending and threatened lawsuits, including “financial demands” from Morris that the church had no intention of accepting. He then dropped the biggest bombshell of all—Gateway was cooperating with a criminal investigation, albeit one that was not focused on anyone currently associated with Gateway.

That piqued my interest. After all, Cindy’s lawyer, Boz Tchividijian—known for his yeoman’s work in advocating for those who have experienced abuse in the church—indicated earlier this year that the statutes of limitations for any misdeeds on Morris’ part in Oklahoma and Texas had long since run out. Clearly, someone who was in a position to right the horrible wrong done to Cindy four decades earlier was trying to find a way to do something about it. Laws are supposed to set forth the bare minimum standard of behavior for living in society. It follows that certain crimes fall so far below that standard that they must be investigated, if only for the sake of the historical record. What happened to Cindy meets that definition several times over.

But who was it? Was it the district attorney in Osage County, Oklahoma, home to Hominy? Or was it the DA in Tarrant County, Texas, home to Southlake? Or the DA in Dallas County, home to most of Grand Prairie? Well, friends, based on my conversations with a lock-down, reliable source who has been sending information they have received to the investigators, I can reveal who that person is—Oklahoma state attorney general Gentner Drummond. My source tells me that the investigation has been underway since at least July—meaning that Drummond got on the case in almost no time at all.

This is probably personal for Drummond, as he was Cindy’s lawyer in 2007, when she tried to send Morris the bill for decades of counseling. She sought $50,000, but Morris was unwilling to pay more than $25,000. Negotiations stalled altogether when Morris insisted that Cindy sign an NDA. During these talks, Morris, through his lawyer, made a patently insulting assertion—Cindy brought this ordeal on herself when she “initiated inappropriate behavior by coming into my client’s room and getting into bed with him.” In other words, textbook victim-blaming—one of the biggest reasons why so many survivors, especially those of Cindy’s generation, don’t come forward for years, if at all.

Morris already had a lot of reason to be afraid with Tchividjian representing Cindy. But now we know that Morris has the legal equivalent of a sword of Damocles hanging over his head. How’s that, you ask? Well, under Oklahoma law, any case of rape committed by a person who is 18 or older upon a person 14 or younger is first-degree rape, punishable by anywhere from five years to life in prison. His actions also arguably meet the definition of child sexual abuse, since Morris was staying in Cindy’s home at the time and was therefore “responsible for (her) health, safety and welfare.” That carries a penalty of anywhere from a year to life in prison.

To my non-lawyer’s mind, Morris faces substantial upward departure from sentencing guidelines. He was a minister, and groomed Cindy before abusing her multiple times over five-and-a-half years. Moreover, rape, sexual assault, and child sexual abuse are among a list of crimes that require an inmate to serve at least 85 percent of their sentence before being considered for parole. He would also have to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life.

If that wasn’t enough, as of 2023, there was no statute of limitations for first-degree rape or sexual assault in Oklahoma. Nor was there a statute of limitations for child sexual abuse when the victim is 16 years old or younger. Further changes in 2024 abolished the statute of limitations for rape if the victim was a child at the time of the offense, regardless of degree. Previously, a victim of child sexual abuse in Oklahoma had to come forward by his or her 45th birthday. Until these changes, the clock would have long since run out for Cindy, as she turned 54 by the time she found someone who was willing to listen to her.

Bottom line? Due to recent changes in Oklahoma law, Morris potentially faces the most severe legal hurt that any minister of his stature has faced since Jim Bakker was racked up on fraud and conspiracy charges almost four decades ago. The fact that this investigation has churned on for almost five months suggests Drummond believes there is potentially something to prosecute. An investigation also makes it more likely that other victims will come to light. Haynes Boone found no evidence that Morris had molested anyone else. Anyone who knows anything about the nature of child molesters knows it’s a near-mathematical certainty that there are more victims. Also, consider that Morris got his start as a youth evangelist. All things considered, we shouldn’t be asking if there are more victims, but how many there are.

Regardless of how many victims there are, if I’m Morris’s legal team, unless there’s no way around the statute of limitations I’m in plea bargain talks right now. Going to trial would be suicidal at this point. The “young lady” press release is essentially a confession, and putting Cindy on the stand would all but assure that Morris gets crucified by the jury. I’d also be preparing for a long and unpleasant conversation with Morris. Unless there’s no way around the statute of limitations, Morris needs to accept that he’s going to prison. And virtually his only chance of getting out of prison in something other than a pine box is to take some hard medicine—at least 10 years, followed by a lifetime on the Oklahoma sex offender registry.

The more I think about it, though, I find myself wondering why Willbanks was only referencing a “criminal investigation,” not multiple “criminal investigations.” Remember, friends, there were elders and staffers who knew long before 2024, and as early as 2005, that Cindy was 12 years old. Pastors and elders have long been mandated reporters in Texas. If I were an elder or staffer at Gateway and I knew Cindy was not merely a “young lady” and didn’t report it, I’d have a lawyer on speed dial. If nothing else, anyone who was involved in crafting the “young lady” press release and didn’t report it ought to have some explaining to do.

We should want this investigation to take time. After all, we cannot afford to have a repeat of the Bill Cosby case. Even though it was clear beyond any doubt that he was a rapist, Cosby was allowed to walk free because prosecutors in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, were either too lazy or too blinded by headlines to do the actual work necessary to make sure his 2018 conviction stuck. Instead, they relied almost entirely on evidence gleaned from testimony in a civil suit—a Fifth Amendment violation that could not be countenanced, even though Cosby was manifestly guilty. Even without that to consider, Morris theoretically has the resources to fight a conviction, so it’s incumbent upon Drummond to ensure there’s enough evidence to ensure any appeal is a fool’s errand. I confess, I hope this doesn’t end the way Bakker’s trial ended. He would still be in prison today if a judge hadn’t gotten diarrhea of the mouth at sentencing.

When I first found out that Morris was indeed the target of an investigation, I couldn’t help but think of a number of friends who haven’t set foot in a church building in ages because so many churches turn a blind eye to child sexual abuse. This investigation is as much for them as it is for Cindy and other victims of sexual abuse in the church. It is long past time that someone was not only willing to listen, but make the effort to see that justice is done.

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