Curtis Killman

Tulsa World Reporter

Texas megachurch founder Robert Preston Morris pleaded guilty Thursday in Osage County District Court to child sex abuse charges in exchange for a 10-year suspended sentence.

Morris will spend the first six months of his sentence in the Osage County Jail and be required to register as a sex offender in Texas, under the plea agreement.

At what was to be his arraignment, Morris admitted to five counts of lewd or indecent acts with a girl, who was 12 years old when the abuse started during the 1980s.

Morris, 64, is founder and former senior pastor of the Southlake, Texas, megachurch Gateway Church.

"There can be no tolerance for those who sexually prey on children," Attorney General Gentner Drummond said in a statement. "This case is all the more desp

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