More than 20 years after Cindy Cremischer alleged that Robert Morris sexually assaulted her beginning at the age of 12, the pastor of Gateway Church asked her a shocking question in an attempt to silence her.
“Put a price on it,” Morris said on Sept. 22, 2005, according to a recording of the phone call obtained by NBC News through a former Gateway staff member.
“That’s not a small number,” Cremischer replied, to which Morris countered that money wouldn’t make her happy and that he understood that.
“Two million dollars,” Klemischer replied before Morris hung up, according to the recording.
But that shocking phone call, which came after an exchange of emails between Klemisher and Morris in which he sought compensation for his trauma, didn’t lead to the downfall of the Texas megachurch pastor who would later serve as a spiritual adviser to former President Donald Trump. It took nearly two more decades for Klemisher to finally come forward publicly on a church watchdog site earlier this month to say that Morris sexually abused him in the 1980s.
Cremischer told Wartburg Watch that the abuse began around Christmas 1982, when Morris, then 21, was staying at her parents’ home in Texas. Morris invited her into his room, told her to lie on her back, then allegedly groped her and touched her under her underwear. The assault was the first of similar incidents over nearly five years, and Cremischer said Morris told her never to talk about it because it would “ruin everything.”
Shortly after Ms Cremischer spoke out, Mr Morris confessed to having engaged in “inappropriate sexual conduct with a young woman” and subsequently resigned from his job at Gateway, which he founded in 2000 and estimates it serves nearly 100,000 customers each week.
“When I was in my early 20s, I engaged in inappropriate sexual activity with a young woman in a home where I was staying. It was kissing and petting, not sexual intercourse, but it was wrong. This behavior occurred several times over the following years,” Morris said in a statement. Christian Post.
Morris did not name Klemischer, but acknowledged having multiple sexual encounters with him before “things came to light” in March 1987. Morris was never charged with a crime, but said he confessed to church elders, asked for forgiveness, and that his “offense was dealt with appropriately.”
NBC News previously reported that Morris took steps to bribe Klemischer in a series of emails in 2005.
“It’s been 23 years since you began destroying my life and I am still suffering the pain and damage you caused,” Klemischer reportedly wrote on Sept. 20, 2005. “I will be asking for some kind of reparation. Please pray about it and call me.”
The call came two days later and included Morris’s wife, according to the records. Klemischer said in a statement to NBC that it wasn’t until 2005, after years of “deep confusion,” that he realized Morris’s actions were criminal.
“I felt really sick and wanted to hold him accountable,” she said. “The phone call with Robert Morris had nothing to do with money at all. It was about my anger and my desire to confront him so that he finally knew that I knew what he had done to me.”
During the call, Klemischer referenced an email in which he said he would go public or file criminal charges unless he paid for his actions, according to the records.
“Well, I don’t think the money helps,” Morris said, according to the transcript.
“Who said it would be of use to me?” Klemischer interrupted him. “It will certainly be of use to you.”
Morris then pointed out that it was wrong to offer her money as hush money, but she claimed that he had not intended to blackmail her. Morris then asked her for money, but she was initially unwilling to say how much.
The Microsoft World recording of the call was provided to NBC by a former employee in the church’s IT department, who said he found it while transferring files from Morris’ computer more than a decade ago. The document, titled “Recorded Telephone Call with Cindy Klemischer,” was created in October 2007 but does not indicate who made the call and has not been altered since it was created.
A Gateway Church spokesperson told NBC that church leaders had not seen the records and could not comment on their authenticity.
“We take this matter very seriously and we never tolerate abuse of any kind,” a spokesperson told the outlet. “Gateway Church has retained outside counsel to conduct an independent and comprehensive investigation into this entire matter.”
