Former Texas MAGAchurch Pastor Robert Morris, who served on convicted felon President Trump’s “spiritual advisory council” during his first campaign in 2016 and until June 2024 led the large Gateway Church chain of congregations – and, per Morris’s lawyer, had in 2007 told molestation victim Cindy Clemishire she was the one who had “initiated inappropriate behavior” by entering his guest room “and getting in bed with him,” on Christmas in 1980 when Clemshire was 12 and Morris was 20 or 21 and he had been staying with her family in Oklahoma – pleaded guilty Thursday to five counts of lewd and indecent acts with a child after evading accountability for decades, CNN reports.
Morris was sentenced to 10 years, all but six months of it suspended, and will register as a sex offender for the rest of his miserable life. He leaves behind a now-steadily collapsing set of congregations that once boasted of attendance in the hundreds of thousands at multiple churches.