Two decades before Pastor Robert Morris publicly confessed last week to engaging in “sexual behavior” with a child and resigning from Gateway Church in Southlake, Texas, his accuser confronted him and asked for compensation, according to copies of emails obtained by NBC News.
“Twenty-three years after you began destroying my life, I am still dealing with the pain and damage you caused,” Cindy Clemishire, then 35, wrote to Morris on September 20, 2005, according to partially redacted emails provided to NBC News by his lawyer.
“I want some kind of restitution. Pray about it and call me.”
Morris responded two weeks later.
“Debbie and I truly care about you and sincerely wish God’s best for you,” he wrote, referring to his wife, Debbie Morris, according to the emails. Robert Morris wrote that he had long ago confessed his sins to Clemishire’s father and believed he had “obtained his forgiveness, as well as that of his family.”
Morris ended his response with a legal warning.
“My lawyer advises that if I pay you any money under threat of exposure, you could be criminally prosecuted and Debbie and I don’t want that,” he wrote. “If you need more information, ask your lawyer to contact mine.”
Morris’ email was the final exchange in a series of messages that year between Clemishire, Morris and a former Gateway elder, Clemishire said. The emails, which span from April to October 2005, appear to reveal Clemishire’s attempts to get Morris — who later became a prominent evangelical figure who served on former President Donald Trump’s spiritual advisory panel — to compensate her. for the trauma she says she inflicted. her as a child.
“Men with over 100 counts of child molestation go to prison,” Clemishire wrote to Morris in one of the messages. “Men who pastor churches that have more than 100 allegations of child sexual abuse go to prison and pay punitive damages. You didn’t have to do that either.
At the request of a retired pastor, Clemishire went public with her allegations against Morris last week in a post published by The Wartburg clock, a website focused on exposing abuse in churches. In the post and in a subsequent interview with NBC News, Clemishire accused Morris of molesting her for years, beginning at their home in Oklahoma on Christmas Eve 1982, when she was 12 years old.
Morris has not been charged with any crime. He did not respond to a request for comment.
Last weekend, Morris and Gateway elders initially responded to Clemishire’s allegations by acknowledging in statements that Morris had several sexual encounters with a “young woman” when he was in his 20s and saying that he had been transparent about his sin and had repented. . On Tuesday, after days of backlash from church members and elected officials, Gateway’s board of elders announced it had accepted Morris’ resignation.
“The elders’ prior understanding was that Morris’ extramarital relationship, which he had discussed many times throughout his ministry, was with ‘a young girl’ and not the abuse of a 12-year-old child,” church leaders said in your statement.
Clemishire and her attorney, Boz Tchividjian, say Gateway elders should have investigated Morris’ account of a consensual relationship long ago.
Gateway officials did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment. The council of elders announced this week that it has hired a law firm to investigate the matter.
The 2005 emails reveal that at least one Gateway Church elder, Tom Lane, was aware that Clemishire had contacted Morris and sought compensation. The emails do not indicate, however, whether Lane, who has since left the church, was aware that Clemishire was accusing Morris of child sexual abuse. The initial email sent by Clemishire is missing from the network shared with NBC News; Clemishire’s attorney said he was unable to locate him.
In a statement to NBC News on Friday, Lane said that until Clemishire went public with her story last week, he “did not fully understand the severity and specifics of the sexual abuse she suffered, nor did he know that she was 12 years old. when the abuse began.”
Lane spokesman Richard Harmer said in an email that Lane was under the impression that Clemishire was under 18 but was old enough to consent to a sexual relationship with Morris, who was said to be in his early 20s. (The age of consent in Oklahoma, where the abuse allegedly occurred, is 16.)
“I am deeply saddened by the pain Cindy Clemishire has endured and the recent revelations about Pastor Robert Morris,” Lane said in his statement. “My deepest condolences go out to Cindy and I pray that her suffering is fully acknowledged and validated.”
In April 2005, Lane wrote to Clemishire on Morris’ behalf, after Clemishire initially reached out via email that NBC News did not see. Lane asked to speak to her and Clemishire responded that she wanted to address the matter directly with Morris.
Lane then wrote that he and the other Gateway elders wanted Clemishire to “find help and healing.”
Lane told Clemishire that Morris was “completely open with the Elders at Gateway Church about his past and specifically about his indiscretion with you.” He said Morris and his wife treated Clemishire with “loving concern, but their responses apparently did not bring the healing you seek.”
“The ‘Blessed Life’ that Robert writes about in his book and that you refer to in your email, is not one of perfection, but of submission and obedience to God, something he has made a diligent effort to follow, both in failure as in failure. success, for over twenty years,” Lane wrote to Clemishire. “Robert and Debbie did what they could to help him heal. Our church believes in healing, forgiveness and restoration of all individuals. We would like to help you find that cure for your life.”
The emails shared by Clemishire’s attorney do not include a response from her to Lane’s message.
In a statement, Tchividjian, Clemishire’s attorney, questioned why Lane and other Gateway elders did not investigate Morris’ allegations.
“It seems like it would have been preferable for them to simply accept their vague narrative rather than seek the truth about a sexual crime perpetrated against a minor,” Tchividjian said. “Gateway leaders had a responsibility to find out what happened and not blindly accept their words.”
Five months after Lane’s message, on September 9, 2005, Clemishire again wrote directly to Morris.
“I’m giving you one last chance to call me,” she wrote. “You really have no idea how devastating it will be if you don’t. I don’t want Tom or anyone else to contact me. This is your problem, not his.
A week later, Morris wrote to say he was praying about how to respond and several days later asked what Clemishire wanted.
Clemishire responded less than two hours later: “I have suffered almost my entire life from the emotional damage you inflicted on me. If you want to know what I want, call me.
Morris never called, Clemishire said, although he said he spoke briefly with his attorney to discuss setting up a meeting with Morris but never followed up.
In her final response included in messages shared by Clemishire, Morris said she was wrong to believe he benefited from keeping what happened between them secret.
“You see the blessings God has poured into my life and conclude it’s because I hid my past,” Morris wrote.
“God doesn’t work like that. He will not be ridiculed for deceit.”
CORRECTION (June 21, 2024, 8:29 p.m. ET): An earlier version of this article incorrectly described Richard Harmer. He’s Tom Lane’s spokesman, not his lawyer.
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