Tag Archives: molestation

NBC News reports: Robert Morris, a pastor and the founder of Gateway Church, wanted to know what it was going to take to prevent the woman on the phone from going public with her accusation that he’d sexually abused her as a child. “Put a price on it,” Morris said on Sept. 22, 2005, according to a document that appears …

NBC News reports: Two decades before pastor Robert Morris publicly confessed last week to engaging in “sexual behavior” with a child and resigned from Gateway Church in Southlake, Texas, his accuser had confronted him and sought compensation, according to copies of emails obtained by NBC News. Morris responded two weeks later. “Debbie and I really do care for you and …

The Kansas City Star reports: The president of Blue Springs’ elected school board has resigned amid allegations raised online by a young woman who accuses him of grooming her about 10 years ago when she was a youth group leader in his church. “It is with a profound sense of responsibility and commitment to transparency that we acknowledge the recent …

The Christian Post reports: Texas-based Daystar Television Network, one of the largest Christian television networks in the world, has removed all programming featuring Gateway Church founder Robert Morris following his resignation amid an allegation that he sexually abused Cindy Clemishire over multiple years in the 1980s beginning when she was 12. “Daystar unequivocally condemns the actions described in these allegations …

The Christian Post reports: Though he previously featured prominently in former President Donald Trump’s Evangelical Executive Advisory Board, Gateway Church’s founding pastor, Robert Morris, who recently resigned in the wake of child sex abuse allegations, no longer has a role in it, a spokesperson for Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign has said. Morris hosted Trump at Gateway Church in June 2020 …

The Associated Press reports: The pastor of a Texas megachurch has resigned after a woman said he had sexually abused her on multiple occasions in the 1980s, beginning when she was 12. Gateway Church’s board of elders said in a statement Tuesday that they’d accepted the resignation of Robert Morris, the church’s senior pastor and founder. The board said it …

The Christian Post reports: Despite statements from elders of Gateway Church in Southlake, Texas, and their founding Pastor Robert Morris suggesting that he stepped away from ministry for two years to undergo a carefully monitored restoration process following a “moral failure” — sexually abusing a girl over multiple years in the 1980s beginning when she was 12 — he was …

The Texas Tribune reports: Paul Pressler, the monumental Southern Baptist leader and Republican activist at the center of a massive sex abuse scandal, died on June 7. He was 94. Pressler was one of the most influential, if lesser-known, evangelical figures of the last half-century, having co-led a movement in the Southern Baptist Convention that pushed the nation’s second-largest faith …

The Christian Post reports: Robert Morris, founding pastor of Gateway Church in Southlake, Texas, which attracts an estimated 100,000 worshipers weekly, has confessed to “inappropriate sexual behavior with a young lady” more than 35 years ago while he was a young pastor after a woman accused him of sexually abusing her over multiple years beginning when she was 12. “When …

The New Orleans Times-Picayune reports: Driving marked police cruisers and dressed in business attire, Louisiana State Police agents arrived at the headquarters of the Archdiocese of New Orleans to serve an unprecedented search warrant that demands officials turn over all records related to a decades-long clergy sex abuse crisis. Three investigators from the agency’s Special Victims Unit entered the Walmsley …

The Washington Post reports: The effort to try Theodore McCarrick on charges of criminal sex assault ended Wednesday in a Wisconsin courtroom when the former archbishop of Washington was deemed incompetent because of dementia. McCarrick, 93, had been charged with sexual assault in the fourth degree, a misdemeanor, in connection with accusations of fondling an 18-year-old family friend at a …

The Texas Tribune reports: The Southern Baptist Convention and others have reached a confidential settlement in a high-profile lawsuit that accused a former leader of sexual assault, ending a six-year legal drama that expanded victims’ rights in Texas, helped prompt a broader reckoning over child sexual abuse in evangelical churches and showed that a prominent conservative activist and Texas House …

Alaska Public Media reports: A former Ketchikan church leader was sentenced to 20 years in prison with 30 more suspended by a local judge last week, in a high-profile case of child sexual abuse. Earlier this year, 72-year-old Dwight “Chris” John was charged with 14 counts of first-degree, second-degree and third-degree sexual abuse of a minor, as well as three …

Lexington’s ABC affiliate reports: A former Lancaster pastor last week agreed to a plea deal to drop 12 charges of sexual abuse of children in exchange for pleading guilty to one charge. Thomas Wall on Dec. 8 pleaded guilty to one count of sexual abuse of a child, according to Garrard County court records. In 2022, Wall was arrested and …

Richmond’s ABC affiliate reports: A former pastor of an independent Baptist church in the town of Warsaw in Richmond County is facing 30 felony charges relating to multiple incidents the Richmond County Sheriff’s Office alleges occurred at the church between 1981 and 1997. Albert Benjamin Wharton, 86, of South Carolina, was arrested in South Carolina at 8:42 a.m. on Friday, …

The Yakima Herald-Republic reports: A new memorial stone in Yakima’s Calvary Catholic Cemetery is meant to prompt “quiet reflection and prayer” for clergy sex abuse victims. It also has generated criticism from statewide victims’ advocates and a demand to update the list of diocesan sex offenders. Yakima Bishop Joseph Tyson [photo] dedicated the monument. The granite memorial, on the south …

Dallas’s Audacy affiliate reports: The former chaplain at Cook Children’s Hospital in Fort Worth has just received a life prison term for the sexual exploitation of children. Because Michael Dale Downs is 71 years old, the 60-year prison term imposed by a federal judge is effectively a life prison term. Federal sentences don’t carry early parole. Investigators say Downs’ wife …

The Rome News-Tribune reports: A former youth minister of a Floyd County church was sentenced Thursday to serve 15 years in prison on child molestation and possession of child pornography charges, alongside another 25 years on probation. When Austin Wray Perkins was arrested on March 9, 2022, as part of a sting targeting child pornography, police discovered he was also …

From the Justice Department: A federal jury today convicted a Lame Deer pastor of sexually abusing three children while they were staying at his home, on the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation, U.S. Attorney Jesse Laslovich said. After a six-day trial that began on Dec. 4, the jury found Dean Alan Smith, 67, guilty of aggravated sexual abuse, abusive sexual contact …

CBS News reports: The Diocese of Sacramento will seek Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection after more than 250 lawsuits claiming sexual abuse by clergy and other staff, Bishop Jaime Soto said on Saturday. “There are many victim-survivors awaiting compensation for the reprehensible sins committed against them,” Soto said in a statement to his parishioners. “It is the sickening sin of sexual …