Alleged child sexual abuse victim Cindy Clemishire, father file suit against Robert Morris, his wife and Gateway Church
CBS Texas
June 12, 2025
By S.E. Jenkins
Cindy Clemishire, the woman at the center of the child sex abuse case involving Gateway Church founder Robert Morris, and her father have filed a lawsuit against the church founder, his wife and several current and former church leaders.
The suit alleges the defendants knew about Robert Morris' deceit, hid it and made millions of dollars from his "moral failures and rape of Plaintiff, Cindy Clemishire."
The lawsuit names Gateway Church, Robert Morris, Robert Morris' wife Deborah Morris, Thomas H. Miller, Jr., John D. Willbanks III, Kevin Grove, Jeremy Carrasco, Kenneth W. Fambro II, Gayland Lawshe, Dane Minor, Lawrence Swicegood, Steve Dulin and the Robert Morris Evangelistic Association Inc.
Miller, Willbanks, Grove, Carrasco, Fambro, Lawshe, Minor and Dulin are identified as Gateway Church elders and Swicegood as the former Executive Director of Media and Communications for Gateway. Deborah Morris, Robert Morris' wife, is listed a former leader of the women's ministry at Gateway.
The scandal surrounding Gateway Church's Robert Morris
The public controversy for the megachurch began in June, when Cindy Clemishire publicly claimed the church's founder, Robert Morris, sexually assaulted her starting in 1982 when she was 12 years old. Robert Morris was a traveling evangelist in his early 20s and had become close with her family.
Those allegations were first published by The Wartburg Watch, a North Carolina-based church watchdog blog, and then picked up by The Christian Post. Cindy Clemishire told CBS News Texas the alleged abuse continued until 1987.
Robert Morris acknowledged in a sermon in 2014 that he was "sexually immoral" when he was a young man and admitted to "inappropriate sexual behavior" In a statement to the Christian Post.
"When I was in my early twenties, I was involved in inappropriate sexual behavior with a young lady in a home where I was staying," he said. "It was kissing and petting and not intercourse, but it was wrong. This behavior happened on several occasions over the next few years."
Church elders said Robert Morris disclosed to them he'd had an extramarital affair, but not that he had allegedly abused a 12-year-old.
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