The jury trial in Cindy Clemishire’s defamation lawsuit against Gateway Church founder Robert Morris won’t begin until next summer. According to court filings in Dallas County, a judge has set a trial date of June 15, 2026.
In June 2024, Clemishire publicly accused Morris of sexually abusing her in the 1980s, beginning when she was 12 and he was in his early 20s. That same month, Morris resigned as senior pastor of Gateway, which is based in Southlake, Texas.
Morris has been charged in Oklahoma with five counts of lewd or indecent acts with a child, and a preliminary hearing in that criminal case is scheduled for Sept. 4. Morris has pleaded not guilty.
In June 2025, Clemishire and her father filed a civil lawsuit against Morris; his wife, Deborah (Gateway’s former women’s ministry leader); eight Gateway elders; and Lawrence Swicegood (Gateway’s former media director).
Clemishire alleges that the defendants mischaracterized her as a “young lady” at the time of the alleged abuse and mischaracterized Morris’ behavior as a consensual “relationship.” She also says Gateway leaders gave false statements to church members and the media about when they learned her age at the time of the abuse.
Clemishire’s legal team said correspondence and documents show that church officials knew her age as far back as 2005.
June 2026 Trial Date Set for Defamation Suit
In the civil suit, Cindy Clemishire and her father, Jerry Lee Clemishire, requested a jury trial and $1 million in damages. According to the plaintiffs, Gateway leaders “acted in concert” to cover up the alleged abuse by Robert Morris, now 64.
The plaintiffs allege that Morris and other church leaders “acted with actual malice” and “reckless disregard for the truth,” partly for “unjust enrichment” financially. “Defendants’ defamatory statements imply that the sexual acts perpetrated against Plaintiff were consensual and merely a moral indiscretion, rather than a crime,” the lawsuit states.
Clemishire says the defendants’ actions harmed her reputation and caused emotional suffering. It took decades to realize that what she experienced for more than four years was sexual abuse, she said, because Morris was not “mean.” At the time, he was a traveling preacher who was staying at Clemishire’s house.
In an October 2024 interview with the Dallas Morning News, Clemishire expressed anger that Morris’ “side” wanted to “portray me as just a floozy—a 12-year-old floozy!” She recalled Morris saying it would “ruin everything” if she told anyone what was happening.
One former Gateway elder, Gayland Lawshe, has requested to be removed from Clemishire’s civil lawsuit. A filing did not specify a reason.
