GOP Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore is denying that he ever met the woman who on Monday accused him of sexually assaulting her in a diner parking lot in 1977 when she was an underage teenager, calling her allegations “absolutely false,” despite his apparent signature in her high school yearbook.
“I can tell you without hesitation this is absolutely false. I never did what she said I did. I don’t even know the woman. I don’t know anything about her,” Moore told reporters during a short press conference with his wife, Kayla Moore, standing by his side.
His remarks come after a press conference with lawyer Gloria Allred earlier on Monday where Beverly Young Nelson became the fifth woman to publicly accuse Moore of sexual misconduct when she was a 16-year-old high school student.
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Nelson said Moore, the Etowah County district attorney at the time, had originally offered to drive her home after her waitressing shift ended. She claims he had instead parked his car behind the restaurant and forcefully tried to grope her, take off her top and push her head toward his “crotch.”
Moore additionally denied knowing where the Olde Hickory House restaurant in Gadsen, Ala., “is or was,” the diner Nelson named as the place where the incident took place.
During the press conference, Nelson held up a yearbook that she said Moore wrote in shortly before the attack took place.
“To a sweeter more beautiful girl I could not say Merry Christmas. Christmas 1977. Love, Roy Moore, D.A.,” it read.
Moore called the fresh accusations a “political maneuver.”
“And if you look at this situation, you’ll see that, because I’m 11 ahead, or 10 and 11 points ahead — this race just being 28 days off, this is a political maneuver. It has nothing to do with reality, it is all about politics,” he added.
Kayla Moore also spoke, calling it the “ugliest politics” she has ever seen in her entire life.
“I’ve been married to this man for 32 years. We’ve been together for 33 altogether. He has never one time lifted a finger to me. He is the most gentle, most kind man that I have ever known in my life. He’s godly, he’s loving and everyone in this community knows it. These are our church members, our family, our friends. These are people who know him just like I do,” she said before the couple walked away without taking questions.
The Washington Post published a bombshell report last week that detailed the account of Leigh Corfman, now 53, who described how Moore made had a sexual encounter with her in 1979, when she was 14 years old and he was 32.
The newspaper also reported other accounts of three other women who allege Moore pursued relationships with them when they were underage.
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Moore appears to be pushing forward with his Alabama special election bid despite Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) calling on him to “step aside” earlier Monday along with other top GOP senators, including Orrin Hatch (Utah), Susan Collins (Maine) and Lindsey Graham (S.C.).