Robert Morris was released from the Osage County jail on Tuesday after completing a six-month sentence for sexually abusing a then 12-year-old Cindy Clemishire for multiple years. The Gateway Church founder said he had some time to reflect during his time spent behind bars and publicly asked Clemishire for her forgiveness.
In a statement shared to the Christian Post, his attorney, William B. Mateja, said his time spent in jail helped him to realize even more how wrong he was for abusing Clemishire.
“I want to speak directly to Cindy Clemishire and her family. What I did to Cindy decades ago was wrong. There is no other word for it, and there is no excuse for it. I am deeply sorry,” Morris said in a statement.
He continued, “I have carried the weight of that wrong for a very long time, and I am grateful, genuinely grateful, that the Clemishires had the courage to bring this into the light.”
“It is only in the light that things can truly be addressed and healed. Many years ago, I sought their forgiveness privately, and as Cindy’s father recently noted, he extended that grace to me — a grace I did not deserve and have never taken for granted.”
Clemishire responded to Morris’s statement, stating that she forgave him a long time ago and hopes that his remorse is genuine.
“His words today are, in many ways, what any victim would hope to hear. But it is still deeply disheartening that those words were not spoken directly to me and my family on October 2nd, when he stood before the court and pleaded guilty. That moment mattered,” she told The Christian Post in response.
She continued: “While I hope his statement reflects genuine remorse, I cannot know whether those words came from his heart or were carefully prepared for him. What I do know is this: what happened to me on December 25, 1982, when I was 12 years old, was not a relationship — it was a crime. And it changed the course of my life forever.”
Morris pleaded guilty last October and was ordered to pay $270,000 in restitution, as Premier Christian News previously reported. He still faces an ongoing defamation lawsuit from Clemishire, along with Gateway Church.