Documents presented in a lawsuit filed in Texas claim that Senior Pastor Brady Boyd and other leaders at New Life Church in Colorado Springs knew for more than 20 years about a visiting pastor’s sexual improprieties with a minor 40 years ago.

But Boyd told congregants in a sermon on June 8 that he learned of the situation for the first time last year, when Pastor Robert Morris, founder and former leader of Gateway Church headquartered in Southlake, Texas, publicly admitted to “inappropriate sexual behavior” and resigned in June 2024.

The victim, Cindy Clemishire, accuses Morris of molesting her for several years, beginning in 1982, when she was 12 years old. Morris is facing five criminal charges related to sexual contact with a child.

Leaders of New Life, a megachurch with six locations and eight congregations totaling more than 15,000 members in El Paso County, reportedly had been told about the abuse of a woman named Cindy Clemishire, in 2007 and again in 2011, according to the recent court filing first reported by The Roys Report.

Boyd’s denial of prior awareness can’t be true, say several other local clergy, including the Rev. Kelly Williams, co-founder and senior pastor of Vanguard Church in Colorado Springs, a Southern Baptist affiliate.

“His response is hard to believe. The documents seem to indicate he knew,” Williams said. “He still says he didn’t know, but he did make it very clear that the search committee knew, and two of those search team members from 2007 are still on his executive team at New Life.”

Documents included in the lawsuit — which Morris filed to challenge his retirement benefits from Gateway following his resignation — state that Clemishire’s sister, Karen Black, was a member of New Life in 2007, when a pastoral search committee sought a new head pastor, following the departure of its founder, the Rev. Ted Haggard.

He left amid a scandal in which he was accused of having sexual relations with a male prostitute and using drugs during his leadership of the church. Haggard denied the allegations.

Boyd got the head job at New Life in August 2007.

Black said in court documents that she “protested and spoke explicitly” to New Life leaders, opposing their selection and detailing her sister’s alleged abuse.

She told The Roys Report she had been concerned about Morris’ influence, and since New Life was already in the national spotlight for circumstances related to Haggard, she didn’t think it was wise to bring Boyd on.

Boyd was Morris’ “right-hand man,” said the Rev. Kirk Sethman, who was ordained by Haggard in 2012 at a second congregation Haggard founded in Colorado Springs after he went through spiritual rehabilitation.

“Brady (Boyd) helped open Gateway, he was part of it and helped it grow before he came to Colorado Springs,” Sethman said. “Brady and Robert (Morris) were connected at the hip.”

Two of the people on the pastoral search committee still are employed by New Life: one is on Boyd’s elder board and has worked closely with him for the past 18 years, Williams said. “And they’ve never had a conversation about what Robert Morris did? That’s just hard to believe.”

Boyd did not respond on Tuesday to either a Gazette email or a phone call requesting an interview about the matter.

In his June 8 presentation to members, Boyd said he was “shocked” to hear last year that Clemishire was 12 when the sexual interactions with Morris began, and he claims that allegations that leaders at New Life knew were “inaccurate.”

Sethman believes Boyd is “absolutely lying.”

“Brady Boyd has been a deceiver from the time he stepped into that position until this very day,” Sethman said.

Boyd was among the recipients of emails describing Black’s disclosure to the search committee members at New Life, documents show, and would have been working at Gateway Church when Morris received a letter from Clemishire stating her allegations.

Sethman sent a letter to New Life leaders last week, calling for them to come clean not only with this issue but also about prior knowledge about more recent sexual abuse allegations involving Haggard and minors that surfaced in a Gazette investigation in 2022, which Haggard denied.

Sethman has what he believes is proof that New Life leaders told him they had filed a police report about Haggard and a minor, yet there is no report to be found, and leaders deny any implications on their part.

“There is much more to this story,” Sethman said.

A former longtime New Life Church member who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the issue said Morris was Boyd’s mentor for the nearly seven years he spent at Gateway, which Morris founded in 2000, and after Boyd became the leader of New Life and Morris acted as an overseer.

“Brady (Boyd) and Robert Morris would pay each other a lot of money to take turns speaking at each other’s churches,” she said. “We heard Robert (Morris) speak a few times at New Life, while Brady went to Gateway to speak.”

Morris would receive standing ovations after his talks, the former member said.

“I never understood why. He seemed untrustworthy, arrogant and twisted the Bible to fit his false prosperity gospel as he ‘spoke down’ to us,” she said.

Williams said inaction on the part of New Life constitutes a cover-up, a development that’s surfaced in recent years across the nation among many churches of varying denominations.

“My concern is that it doesn’t appear that anyone is taking responsibility for what took place, and it seems that everyone’s sorting of pointing the finger the other direction,” Williams said.

Williams wants an internal investigation at New Life that publicly reveals the truth.

“I want us to be unified as churches, but we have to take responsibility for the misuse of authority in the past,” he said. “It’s painful, and we all want unity. But, you can’t have unity devoid of truth and honesty.”

Williams’ book, “The Mystery of 23: God Speaks,” gives his account of knowing about Haggard’s sexual proclivities five years before Haggard’s public fall in November 2006. Williams said he brought his concerns to New Life’s elders but did not receive a response.

“I’m not against New Life,” he said. “It’s sad that this happened, but it’s also sad that it’s being handled this way again. It appears that no matter the volume of evidence, there is no one at fault.”

Williams also is calling on New Life leaders to discuss changes that have been made and still need to be made, “in order for all of us as churches to avoid doing these sorts of things and being accountable when we do.”

Williams believes the circumstance is a reminder that churches should not use nondisclosure agreements to silence people that have been abused.

“Gateway and New Life have done that. Brady (Boyd) and Robert Morris did that,” he said. “They’ve never publicly acknowledged that is not a good practice. It only prolongs the inevitable and destroys the trust a community has with a church. It also suppresses the abused’s ability to get help and be able to publicly acknowledge that.”

Even if the elders and leaders involved were given the facts of moral failure, “It is troubling to think that the men and women we have entrusted to lead our faith institutions had no curiosity or further questioning as to what happened,” said Megan Anderson, a Colorado Springs resident who defines herself as a survivor of adult clergy sexual abuse by a former pastor. “It’s staggering to think of how many leaders kept this quiet.”

Though Anderson said she knows how “the silence from leaders around the abuser is deafening and causes further harm,” the culture and cycle of cover-up around the abuser becomes part of the DNA of churches and leadership.

“If this happened in a secular institution, licenses would be revoked, jobs would be terminated, and there would be no chance for rehire or rehabilitation,” she said. “Too often there is not proper accountability or governance in faith communities.”