Twitter A new advertisement by the Doug Jones for Senate campaign says the names of the women who accuse Roy Moore of sexual misconduct.
A few weeks have now gone by since a bombshell report was published by The Washington Post featuring the stories of four women who accuse Roy Moore of sexual misconduct. Many of the women were minors, and some of their stories accused Moore of sexually harassing and assaulting them while he worked for the district attorney’s office in Etowah County.
Moore, the Republican candidate for Senate in Alabama, has denied the allegations, saying that relationships with minors ever occurred. His Democratic opponent, Doug Jones, has largely stayed silent on the allegations. That is until now.
The Doug Jones for Senate campaign released an attack ad on Moore on November 22. Jones shared the powerful advertisement, titled, “Immoral” on his social media accounts. The 30-second spot starts by saying the names of the women who have accused Moore of having romantic relationships with him over the years. It ends with the narrator questioning if voters want to put a man with such allegations against him into office.
“Leigh Corfman, Beverly Young Nelson, Debbie Wesson Gibson, Gloria Thacker Deason, Gena Richardson, Wendy Miller, Kelly Harrison Thorp, and the list is growing,” a voice said. “They were girls when Roy Moore immorally pursued them. Now, they are women. Witnesses to us all of his disturbing conduct. Will we make their abuser a U.S. senator?”
Watch the full advertisement in the video below:
Jones is set to go against Moore in a December 12 special election. It’s to fill the vacant Senate seat left by Jeff Sessions, who was appointed Attorney General by President Donald Trump. Moore defeated Luther Strange in a primary election a few months ago, and the general election campaign has taken many twists and turns since then.
One of the accusers in The Post story, Leigh Corfman, said she was just 14-years old when Moore initiated a sexual encounter between the two.
In her story, Corfman said that Moore approached her when she was outside of a courtroom in Etowah County. Moore was a 32-year-old assistant district attorney at the time, and Corfman claims she gave her phone number to him.
Corfman said that just a few days later, Moore picked her up from her house and they went to his home. On the first date, Corfman says the two kissed. Things escalated on the second, she claims. After Moore picked her up, she said he touched her over her bra and underwear. She added that Moore took her hand and put it over his underwear.
“I wasn’t ready for that,” she told The Post. “I had never put my hand on a man’s penis, much less an erect one.”
In addition, Corfman said Moore of gave her alcohol during that encounter, though the legal drinking age in Alabama at the time was 19.
“I wanted it over with — I wanted out,” she told the newspaper. “Please just get this over with. Whatever this is, just get it over.”
Corfman said that Moore took her home following the encounter, calling him “charming and smiley.”
Another woman, Gloria Thacker Deason, told The Post she entered a relationship with him when she was 18. Deason said that Moore would often pick her up for dates from the community college she attended or the jewelry store she worked at.
The two went out on numerous dates, she said, and drank alcohol although she was underage. Deason’s mother was strict and typically wouldn’t allow her to meet past 10:30 p.m., but because she thought highly of Moore, “she just felt like I would be safe with him,” Deason said in her account of their relationship.
Deason said the two dated off and on for “several months,” adding she took her to his home more than once. However, their physical relationship never got any further than kissing and hugging, she said.
A few days after the report in the newspaper, Beverly Young Nelson told a story of how Moore tried to rape her outside of a restaurant she worked at when she was 16.
As a teenager, she started working as a waitress after school at the Old Hickory House, a restaurant in Gadsden that Moore frequented, she said. She worked there when she was 15-16 years old and said she’d often work until 7-10 p.m. Moore would come into the restaurant “nearly every day,” sitting in the same seat and oftentimes staying until the restaurant closed.
Nelson burst into tears as she described how Moore complimented her appearance, saying he was very flirtatious with her. On occasion, she said Moore would touch her long, red hair.
“I did know that he was an important person, and I always treated him with respect,” Nelson said. “When he was at the restaurant, he would speak to me and would sometimes pull the ends of my long hair as I walked by him.”
Watch her full, emotional press conference in the video below:
Nelson said she was accustomed to men flirting with her because she was “well developed and competed in beauty pageants.” She claims that she never responded to Moore’s flirtatious behavior because she had a boyfriend at the time and wasn’t interested in having a relationship “with a man who’s twice my age.”
One time, she said that she brought her high school yearbook to the restaurant. Moore saw it and asked her if he could sign it.
“I felt flattered, and I said yes,” she said.
Nelson claims that Moore wrote in a note that she was a “beautiful girl” and signed it: “Love, Roy Moore, D.A.” Nelson and Allred displayed the yearbook at the press conference.
Ms. Nelson’s printed statement includes a picture of Moore’s note in her yearbook…
“Love, Roy Moore D.A.”
Nelson said her sexual encounter with Moore took place in December 1977. As she left the restaurant after a shift and awaited her boyfriend to pick her up, she said Moore approached her outside. With her boyfriend running late, she said Moore offered her a ride home and she agreed because she trusted him.
“I thought he was simply doing something nice by offering to drive me home,” she said. “I did not want to wait outside in the cold, so I agreed.”
Because cell phones didn’t exist back then, she said she intended on calling her boyfriend to let him know she got a ride once she got home.
Instead of driving on the highway, though, she claims Moore drove to the back of the restaurant between dumpsters and parked where there were no lights. Nelson said she questioned what he was doing, and he suddenly started putting his hands on her against her will.
“I tried to open my car door to leave, but he reached over and he locked it so I could not get out,” she described. “I tried fighting him off, while yelling at him to stop. But instead of stopping he began squeezing my neck, attempting to force my head onto his crotch. I continued to struggle. I was determined that I was not going to allow him to force me to have sex with him. I was terrified, he was also trying to pull my shirt off. I thought that he was going to rape me. I was twisting and struggling and I was begging him to stop. I had tears running down my face.”
She said that at some point, Moore gave up and threatened her, saying: “You’re just a child, I am the district attorney of Etowah County. And if you tell anyone about this, no one will ever believe you.”
Nelson said that Moore allowed her to open the door and leave, but wasn’t sure if he pushed her out. Either way, she claims she was on the ground as Moore sped away with the passenger-side door open. As she got up and went back to the front of the restaurant, her boyfriend arrived and picked her up.
“It was late, it was dark and I didn’t say anything to him as to what occurred,” Young said about what she said to her boyfriend. “When I got home, I went to my room, and the following morning my neck was black and blue and purple. In the days following, I covered the bruising on my neck with makeup. I did not tell anyone what had happened. I was scared. I felt that if I told anyone that Mr. Moore would do something to me or my family.”
Nelson said that one day after the alleged assault, she quit the restaurant and never went back.
At a November 15 press conference, Moore’s attorney further denied the women’s claims against him. He pointed to Nelson’s yearbook and Moore’s signature as a sticking point, asking for her to release it to them so that a handwriting expert could examine it to see if it was actually Moore’s signature.
Many from both sides of the political spectrum have called for Moore to drop out of the Senate race. Despite the requests, Moore has stuck to his campaign and vowed to see the election out.
