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Trump Spiritual Advisor Now Very Sorry For Molesting A 12-Year-Old Girl

One of his lawyers previously claimed the 12-year-old girl seduced him.

https://www.wonkette.com/p/trump-spiritual-advisor-now-very

Former megachurch pastor Robert Morris, who previously advised Donald Trump on matters of faith, spirituality, and we can assume morality, has pleaded guilty to sexually abusing Cindy Clemishire for several years starting when she was 12 years old — a situation he previously described as “inappropriate sexual behavior.”

Clemishire met Morris in 1982, when he was a 20-year-old married man just starting his ministry. The abuse began when he stayed with her family over Christmas and asked her to come stay with him in his room, after which he began fondling and kissing her. It lasted for four years, until he actually tried to have sex with her in his car and she finally told a friend, who told her father, which then led to Morris being “banned” from the ministry for about two years.

Morris, who founded Gateway Church in Southlake, Texas, agreed to a plea deal in Osage County Courthouse in Pawhuska, Oklahoma, after having previously pleaded not guilty in March when he was indicted on five counts of lewd or indecent acts to a child.

In exchange for having pleaded guilty this time, he received a 10-year suspended sentence, of which he will serve six months and then be required to register as a sex offender. He is also required to pay Climishire $270,000 in restitution, which really does not seem like enough, given the many million dollar properties he owns. Especially considering that he demanded that Gateway Church pay him millions after he was forced to resign over the whole “being a child molester” thing last year. The fact that he stands to make more money from sexually abusing a 12-year-old than his victim will receive is rather galling.

Clemishire has been in therapy for years dealing with the abuse, but many experts thought Morris wouldn’t face actual criminal charges at all, due to the statute of limitations. However, a “frontier-era” Oklahoma law may have allowed him to be prosecuted anyway.

Via Dallas Morning News:

“When Oklahoma was formulating its constitution and statutory framework, we were ‘no man’s land,’ we were Indian territory,” [Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner] Drummond said [in March]. He said the state put a law on the books to prevent people from neighboring states like Arkansas and Texas from coming to Oklahoma, committing crimes and returning home.

The statute he referenced says: “If when the offense is committed the defendant be out of the state, the prosecution may be commenced within the term herein limited after his coming within the state, and no time during which the defendant is not an inhabitant of or usually resident within the state, is part of the limitation.”

“While he believes that he long since accepted responsibility in the eyes of God — and that Gateway Church was a manifestation of that acceptance — he readily accepted responsibility in the eyes of the law by virtue of his guilty plea,” Morris’s lawyer, Bill Mateja, said in a statement.

Well, not that readily, given his initial not guilty plea and the fact that he initially clearly did not see that he did anything all that wrong.

Since Clemishire first came forward, Morris and his lawyers have been seemingly confounded by the notion that sexually touching a 12-year-old girl is an actual criminal act. One of his lawyers even went so far as to claim that Clemishire was the one who seduced him, clearly neglecting to understand that — even if that were true, which very much does not appear to be the case — it’s still a crime.

It does not matter if we are talking about a 12-year-old who, as described in one article, “was dressed in flowery pink pajamas and still liked to play with Barbie dolls” or if we are talking about a 12-year-old who is fully developed, taking college-level classes, dressed up like Jessica Rabbit and actively trying to make out with you, a 20-year-old married minister. It’s a crime. It is not a mitigating factor any more than it would be if an especially precocious 12-year-old asked you to go murder someone or rob a bank. “I committed a crime because this 12-year-old really wanted me to” is not a valid excuse in any court of law, anywhere, even if the crime you committed was against said 12-year-old.

I very much doubt that Morris fully grasps this, even now. After all, his former advisee has reportedly expressed disappointment in his supporters who are still concerned with Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes being unable to understand that Palm Beach in the 1990s was a different time.

While it is factually true that it was a different time, just as any time other than this moment is a different time, it still was not okay for grown men to have sex with teenagers or preteens even then, particularly in the case of actual sex-trafficking. In fact, it was against the law. Just as it was against the law to molest a 12-year-old in Oklahoma in 1982.

Now 55, Clemishire said in a victim impact statement that “justice has finally been served, and the man who manipulated, groomed and abused me as a 12-year-old innocent girl is finally going to be behind bars. My hope is that many victims hear my story, and it can help lift their shame and allow them to speak up.” She added that “I hope that laws continue to change and new ones are written so children and victims’ rights are better protected. I hope that people understand the only way to stop child sexual abuse is to speak up when it happens or is suspected.”