Posted on 07/12/2024 9:55:25 PM PDT by Morgana
More details have emerged regarding the sex abuse committed by Robert Morris on a 12 year old girl beginning in 1982. Robert Morris would go on to pastor Gateway Church, the largest megachurch in the United States. According to Morris, he stepped back into ministry with the blessing of Cindy Clemishire’s father who failed to report him to the police. Clemishire then alleges that Robert Morris offered her only $25000 to sign an NDA around 2005. More details have emerged from this negotiation including the remarks of Robert Morris’s lawyer who appears to blame a child for being molested.
NBC News reports:
“It was your client,” wrote lawyer J. Shelby Sharpe, referring to Clemishire at age 12, “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.”
The Feb. 6, 2007, letter was one in a series of exchanges that year between Sharpe and Gentner Drummond, a lawyer who represented Clemishire at the time. Clemishire said in an interview last week she had been seeking $50,000 in restitution from Morris to cover the cost of counseling. Morris, through his lawyer, instead offered to pay $25,000, but the talks fell apart, Clemishire said, because she was not willing to sign a nondisclosure agreement.
Drummond, who is now Oklahoma’s attorney general, confirmed Clemishire’s description of the 2007 negotiations and declined to comment further.
J Shelby Sharpe denies knowing that Cindy CLimishire was a child at the time.
Reached by phone Monday, Sharpe said that he had no recollection of the $25,000 settlement offer or NDA demand and that he no longer represents Morris. He denied knowing at the time that Clemishire had been a child when Morris began engaging in sexual behavior with her. However, the initial correspondence Drummond sent to him stated clearly that Clemishire was “twelve years old” when the abuse began.
“I don’t ever remember seeing that,” Sharpe said after a reporter read the document to him. After a reporter offered to share a copy of the messages, Sharpe said he did not have time to read them and declined to share an email address.
Sharpe should have known Morris molested a child and most likely did as his alibi is not believable. This is the latest instance uncovered of people “not knowing” Robert Morris molested a child. The elders of Gateway Church claimed to “not know” even though Morris’s explanation which they had in a leaked internal memo gave several key indicators of the victim being a child. Likewise, it would be odd for a lawyer to make such counterarguments about “who initiated” before gathering the facts. What is clear, also, is that Robert Morris made a concerted effort to not tell people he molested a child even when referencing this situation.
Not necessarily.
Children in foster care are often experienced sexually and the more manipulative ones manage their world by sexual manipulation. It is all they know.
I have worked in more than one situation where the foster parents or care workers were at risk because of a sexually manipulative legal child/adolescent. Removing that child to an environment where there is greater oversight to protect the CAREGIVERS was mandatory.
Most people who go into these roles have little idea of the sophistication of the sexual emotional manipulations of these youngsters who are using the only means they know to manage their universe.
It can be tragic for everyone involved.
Combine this with our culture’s schizophrenic attitude toward sexual desire which denies overwhelming physical desire and treats sex as merely a cerebral transactional event and these situations blindside people.
See my post below
If that’s your lawyer’s plan to claim a 12 year old seduced you, then you really are F’ed. The minor seduced me excuse! Oh yea, that will work…. 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
What are you suggesting in that pertains to this circumstance?
No one remembers Hillary Clinton using the same accusation as a defense in a case she won as a practicing attorney 60 years ago?
of course he did! That slut. /s
Every molesting pedophile is an accomplished liar.
The self-worship is strong with this one
There is a 99.9% probability that this guy is a pervert and the 12 yo girl is a victim.
But, the way kids are being sexed in school these days I can see a 12 yo girl actually trying to seduce an adult.
A minor has never tried to seduce me, but in my life I have had women half my age try this, with one claiming she wanted to marry me. I believe I am not alone in this, as there are numerous marriages out there where such an age difference exists. I never understood women going for men their father’s age or older.
As a schoolteacher in a rural school I had a 15 year old jump on my lap on a school is and plant suggestive letters at my house. As someone said you have to be the moral adult or you could be singing a Jim Croce song!
Was it God’s will she came on to him?
You are right!
“Working at the Carwash Blues”?
Total hogwash.
So true. But many on FR seem to think 14, 16, 17 year old prostitutes or promiscuous are fair game - they are “old enough.”
It is the most discouraging thing to me on FR, when the men start talking like a 16 year old is just a gold digger and not a victim of sexual abuse.
Most would agree a 12 year old didn’t “ask for it.” But you get to the older teens and they split off.
18 is the age of majority. Obviously we don’t all become instant and full adults on our birthday — but that’s the age. I challenge those who argue otherwise, well, what’s your line then? 17? 16? 15? 14? How low can you go? And on what basis.
I’m glad the majority of FR want to protect the 12 year olds, anyway.
a twelve year old CAN try to seduce an adult. That doesn’t matter. They are not fully developed yet. They can exhibit trauma in all sorts of ways. They are SO malleable. I could have made my kids do almost anything!! They are simply not fully formed yet.
It is the job of ADULTS to correct self harm behaviors in kids, not exploit them. I am sure you agree; I am posting to remind those on FR who like to accuse, say, Epstein’s girls as manipulative whores who knew what they were doing. ..no, not fully, they were MANIPULATED. Teens are EASILY manipulated, which is what predators count on.
Adultery, as well as rape which is what this is, is a death penalty offense, biblically.
It is not unforgiveable. If we repent, we are saved. As was David apparently.
David’s rape and murder does not mean it’s ok to do. God sovereignly spared him from the death penalty but we don’t have that perogative.
I am glad if this man repented but if our laws were biblical he’d be gone and thus not in a position to be “in the ministry.”
The minute you put conditions on when or if someone can be forgiven and TOTALLY ABSOLVED, you destroy the confidence we can have in Christ’s sacrifice...and we’re back to priests and indulgences, etc. Come to think of it, the Apostle Paul was guilty of an unknown number of murders. Your reasoning put HIS salvation on shaky ground; and makes his writings of questionable validity. No! If Christ’s Salvation doesn’t avail for ALL SIN, then it’s anybody’s guess as to what it DOES cover. Let’s not go THERE!
I do not doubt that the worst sinner among us can be forgiven. Be right with God. Go to heaven.
There is civil law too. Were it properly applied, this man would not be able to be “in the ministry” and it would not be a matter of debate.
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