Robert Morris to spend 6 months in prison after pleading guilty to child sex abuse

Robert Morris, the founder of Gateway Church in Southlake, Texas, will spend six months in prison as part of a 10-year suspended sentence after pleading guilty Thursday to sexually abusing the now 55-year-old Cindy Clemishire beginning when she was 12 in the 1980s.

"He simply accepted responsibility for his crime from the mid-1980's and pled guilty. He pled guilty because he wanted to accept responsibility for his conduct. While he believes that he long since accepted responsibility in the eyes of God — and that Gateway Church was a manifestation of that acceptance — he readily accepted responsibility in the eyes of the law by virtue of his guilty plea," Morris' lawyer Bill Mateja said in a statement after the hearing in Osage County Court, Oklahoma.

“He also pled guilty for the sake of finality. Not only did he want to bring this legal matter to a quick end for his own sake and that of his family, he brought it to a quick end for the sake of Ms. Clemishire and her family and he sincerely hopes that his plea and jail sentence coupled with probation brings Ms. Clemishire and her family the finality that they might need."

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