Gateway Church And Morris Agree On Arbitration To Settle Retirement Fight
Gateway Church and its disgraced founder Robert Morris have agreed to arbitration to settle their multimillion-dollar retirement dispute, rather than continue battling in court.
Morris, 64, resigned as Gateway’s senior pastor in 2024, after reports surfaced that he had molested 12-year-old Cindy Clemishire in 1982 while a traveling evangelist in Oklahoma. In May 2025, Morris sued Gateway to get millions in retirement benefits.
Gateway and Morris have agreed “on an appropriate arbitration forum to resolve their dispute,” and dismissed the state court case, Morris’s attorney Bill Mateja said in a statement to KTVT-TV Ch. 11, the CBS affiliate for Fort Worth.
The Roys Report contacted Mateja and Gateway Church Tuesday evening for comment but did not receive an immediate response.
According to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, the suit was dismissed “without prejudice,” meaning it can be refiled. Also, the newspaper said, the parties will cover their own expenses incurred during the course of the lawsuit.
As The Roys Report reported previously, Morris had sought $1 million in vested benefits and annual payments of $800,000 to himself as the Gateway founder until the age of 70. He would then receive $600,000 in annual payments, which would then go to his wife, Debbie, once he dies, for the remainder of her life.
Morris claimed the payments were agreed to in a 2014 compensation agreement and were later amended with a verbal commitment from church elders.
The church initially responded to Morris by stating that his sexual abuse of Clemishire nullifies his claims.
Morris’s “claims are false and do not reflect accountability for the impact of his actions on the community,” Gateway said in a previous statement to TRR. The church said at the time it had “chosen not to meet” Morris’s “substantial” financial demands.
However, Morris contended that he had been transparent with Gateway elders about his crimes against Clemishire for decades.
Gentner Drummond, Oklahoma’s Attorney General, indicted Morris in March 2025 for the sexual offenses, stating the state’s statute of limitations didn’t apply “because Morris was not a resident or inhabitant of Oklahoma at any time.”
In October 2025, Morris pleaded guilty to sexually abusing Clemishire. He served six months imprisonment under a plea deal that suspended the balance of a 10-year sentence.
The plea deal also required Morris to register as a sex offender and pay $270,000 in restitution to Clemishire.
Separately, Clemishire and her father have sued Gateway, Morris and others for $1 million in damages. That case is under review at the Fifth Court of Appeals in Dallas, after a judge denied Morris’s attempts to have the action dismissed.
This article was originally published at The Roys Report.
Mark A. Kellner is a reporter based in Mesquite, Nevada. He most recently covered statewide elections for the New York Post and was for three years the Faith & Family Reporter for The Washington Times. Mark is a graduate of the University of the Cumberlands and also attended Boston University’s College of Communication.