OKLAHOMA CITY — A man who used to be the leader of a huge church in Texas is scheduled to turn himself in to Oklahoma police on Monday on charges of sexually abusing children.
His lawyer, Mack Martin, told The Associated Press that Robert Preston Morris, 63, is likely to turn himself in to police in Osage County, where he was charged last week with five counts of lewd or indecent acts with a kid.
Martin wouldn’t say anything about the charges against Morris, but he did say that he planned to enter a not guilty plea for Morris.
According to court records, a judge in Osage County set a bond of $50,000 and told Morris to give the sheriff his passport.
Morris quit his job as pastor of Gateway Church in Southlake, a neighborhood of Dallas, last year after a woman said he sexually abused her in the 1980s.
The victim, named C.C. in the indictment, was 12 years old at the time of the alleged abuse. Morris was a traveling evangelist living with her family in Hominy, Oklahoma, in 1982, according to the attorney general’s office. It is said that the abuse went on for four years.
Cindy Clemishire, who accused Morris, said in a statement that she is thankful to the people who worked hard to get him charged and that she hopes “justice will ultimately prevail.”
“After almost 43 years, Robert Morris has finally been caught by the law for the horrible crimes he did to me as a child,” said Clemishire, who is now 55 years old. “Therefore, the law needs to hold him responsible now.”
Sometimes, the AP doesn’t name people who say they’ve been sexually attacked, but Clemishire asked that her name be used.
It was known that Morris was involved in politics. In 2020, the church had President Donald Trump to its Dallas campus for a talk about race relations and the business.
The office of the attorney general says Morris could spend up to twenty years in jail on each of the five charges.
