Robert Morris’ Lawyer Says Cindy Clemishire Initiated Inappropriate Behavior
- Milton Quintanilla Crosswalk Headlines Contributor
- Updated Jul 12, 2024
A lawyer for Gateway founder and former pastor Robert Morris argued in a 2007 correspondence that Cindy Clemishire, a 54-year-old woman who claimed that Morris sexually abused her in the 1980s starting when she was 12, is partly to blame because she climbed into his bed and that she also acted inappropriately with two other adult men. On Feb. 6, 2007, J. Shelby Sharpe, who also served as personal attorney for former Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary President Paige Patterson, wrote in a letter to Clemishire’s then-attorney, Gentner Drummond, that she was responsible for the abuse she experienced when she tried to sue Morris for $50,000, NBC News reported.
“It was your client who initiated inappropriate behavior by coming into my client’s bedroom and getting in bed with him, which my client should not have allowed to happen,” Sharpe wrote.
Drummond, who is currently Oklahoma’s attorney general, confirmed the correspondence with NBC News but didn’t offer any additional comment. Meanwhile, Sharpe, who no longer represents Morris, told the outlet he does not remember the settlement offer and denied knowing that Clemishire was a child when the abuse started.
“I don’t ever remember seeing that,” Sharpe said when he was reminded of the letter.
“I can tell you that the letters that you’ve seen, they speak for themselves,” said Sharpe. “I will not amplify beyond those letters because they speak for themselves.”
In the 2007 correspondence, Sharpe reportedly stated that Clemishire “acted inappropriately with two other men who stayed in her home between 1982 and 1987” when she was between 12 and 17 years old.
The letter also noted that Clemishire “confessed her conduct” to Glenda Faulkner, a woman who attended Shady Grove Church near Fort Worth, Texas, in the 1980s, when Morris served as a pastor.
Clemishire told NBC News that two other men touched her inappropriately in her home as a child but denied that she initiated the incidents. On one occasion, she alleged Morris told her when she was 13 to go into a bedroom at her childhood home where another traveling evangelist was staying.
She pointed out that the man, whom she did not identify, began to kiss her after she entered the room but stopped himself and told her she was too young.
In a separate incident, which took place in 1986, another man staying with Clemishire’s family climbed on top of her bed while she was sleeping on a sofa bed next to his 3-year-old daughter.
Although she thought he was going to rape her, the man stopped abruptly.
“I really think God intervened,” Clemishire told NBC News. “God made him feel like someone was walking by, and he just rolled off of me and left.”
Following the 1986 incident, Clemishire said she decided to confide in Faulker-Woodlife, who encouraged her to tell her parents about what was taking place with Morris. After she told her parents, her father urged Olen Griffing, the then-senior pastor at Shady Grove Church, to have Morris step down from ministry, which was in 1987 and later returned in 1989.
Last month, Morris resigned from Gateway Church after Clemishire alleged that he abused her in the 1980s starting when she was 12 years old.
Related Articles:
- Morris’ Son and Gateway Church Elders Temporarily Step Down Amid Sex Abuse Investigation
- Senior Pastor Jimmy Evans Denies Knowledge of Morris’ Sin
- Gateway Church Elder Apologizes to Robert Morris Victim Cindy Clemishire
- Televangelist James Robinson Denies Meeting Victim and Her Family with Robert Morris
- Daystar Television Cuts Ties with Robert Morris After Sex Abuse Allegations
- Victim of Gateway Church Pastor Robert Morris Says Church Was Aware of His Crime
- Pastor Robert Morris Resigns Post Board of Elders Announcement
Photo Credit: ©YouTube/NBC News
