SOUTHLAKE, Texas — A lawsuit filed in Tarrant County on Wednesday accused a teen member of a Gateway Church youth group of sexually assaulting a 13-year-old girl in allegations that date back to 2017, according to court documents.
The lawsuit, which was obtained by WFAA on Thursday, detailed sexual assault allegations involving two teens who attended weekly youth group meetings on Wednesday nights in 2016 at The King's University in Southlake, a location near Gateway Church where youth group meetings were being held.
The lawsuit alleges that a 13-year-old girl, whose parents were "devout and active members of the church," was groomed by a then-17-year-old boy and sexually assaulted at these youth group meetings starting in late 2016 into early 2017.
Both the defendant and Gateway Church were named as defendants in the lawsuit, which accused Gateway of not doing more to prevent the alleged assaults.
Gateway Church officials gave WFAA the following statement in regards to the lawsuit:
“We take any claim of abuse very seriously. We are unable to further comment regarding ongoing litigation at this time.”
WFAA is not naming the defendant, nor the victim, because both were minors at the time.
The defendant was later arrested in a separate case of child sex assault and sentenced in 2022 to four years in prison. The lawsuit filed this week said the defendant's conviction was unrelated to the lawsuit.
This lawsuit comes after Gateway Church announced its annual conference was canceled amid separate child sex assault allegations against the church's founder Robert Morris, who resigned earlier this summer. Cindy Clemishire accused the former senior pastor of molesting her when she was 12 years old in the mid-1980s. Shortly after these allegations came to light, Robert Morris resigned and Gateway Church accepted his resignation. Three church elders and Morris' son, Pastor James Morris, also announced temporary leaves of absence while an outside law firm conducts an investigation into allegations against Robert Morris.
According to this week's new lawsuit, which was filed by the girl's parents, the youth group meetings at King's University often had more than 200 children from sixth grade (11 to 12 years old) to 12th grade (17 to 18 years old) "with little or no supervision by Gateway’s youth counselors, pastors, leaders, chaperones or volunteers."
The lawsuit alleged the then-teenage boy "cynically used the biblical beliefs and teachings of Defendant Gateway’s pastor and ministers to convince 13-year-old [victim] that it was the will of God, and the leaders of Defendant Gateway, that she submit to him because he was a male and she was a female." The lawsuit states "there were surveillance cameras on the building above the areas where [victim] was sexually assaulted but nobody from Defendant Gateway ever came to [victim]’s aid."
It is believed that the victim is not the only youth group member to have been sexually assaulted by the teenage boy at King's University, the lawsuit also alleged.
The lawsuit defendant, now 25, is still in prison on an unrelated sex assault conviction. He is being housed in Liberty County at the Hightower Unit and has been parole-eligible since October 2022, jail records show. He was put in a sex offender treatment program in October 2023 and is projected to be released on parole on Oct. 30 of this year.
The family is seeking a jury trial "to resolve all fact issues in this case" and monetary damages of more than $1 million.
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