Roy Moore attorney questions accuser's story, demands her yearbook

Brian Lyman | Montgomery Advertiser

Show Caption Hide Caption Roy Moore's campaign wants to analyze one of his accuser's yearbooks The embattled campaign of Alabama Senate Republican candidate Roy Moore responded to one of his accusers allegations of sexual assault with a desire to verify a piece of evidence she used in coming forward.

MONTGOMERY, Ala. — With his client facing allegations of inappropriate behavior with both teen girls and women, an attorney for Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore Wednesday questioned portions of an accuser’s story and demanded a yearbook that the accuser said Moore signed a few weeks before attacking her in a car.

Philip Jauregui also said Moore, then an Etowah County Circuit judge, presided over Beverly Nelson's divorce from her then-husband in 1999; Nelson had said at a press conference she did not have any contact with Moore after he allegedly attacked her in a car in 1977.

While denying broadly the allegations, neither Jauregui nor Moore Chairman Bill Armistead said anything directly about Nelson's allegations that Moore, then an assistant district attorney, attacked her in a car in 1977 after offering her a ride home, or about allegations from four other women that Moore pursued romantic relationships with them when they were teenagers.

"I've been with him in probably over 100 meetings and been around probably an excess of 10,000 ladies," Jauregui said. "Not once, not one time, have I seen him act even remotely inappropriately against any woman."

Both men left a brief press conference outside the Alabama Republican Party without taking questions from the press. Jauregui said they wanted the yearbook released and submitted to an independent review of Moore's signature.

Gloria Allred, an attorney representing Nelson, said in an email that she had formally requested the U.S. Senate's Judiciary and Ethics committees to hold hearings in which both Nelson and Moore would testify under oath. Nelson and an attorney for Gloria Deason, who said Moore bought her wine when she was underage, said they would be willing to testify to their stories under oath; Moore has not indicated whether he would be willing to do so.

If the committee conducted that hearing, Allred wrote, they would turn the yearbook over to an independent expert.

"The time has come for Roy Moore to announce whether he is willing to be examined under oath concerning his conduct with regard to the five accusers before the Senate Committees," she wrote.

New accuser comes forward against Roy Moore Beverly Young Nelson accused Roy Moore, of having sexually assaulted her when she was 16 years old.

Six women have accused Moore of pursuing relationships with them as teenagers or inappropriate conduct while he was an assistant district attorney in Gadsden from 1977 to 1982. One, Leigh Corfman, told the Washington Post that she was 14 when Moore, then 32, took her to his home, undressed her and initiated sexual contact with her. The age of consent in Alabama, then and now, is 16.

Nelson said on Monday that she was 16 when Moore offered her a ride home from her job as a waitress in Gadsden. Nelson said Moore attacked her in the car, groping her and squeezing her neck trying to pull it toward his crotch. At a press conference, she displayed a yearbook she said Moore signed a few weeks before the alleged attack, which said, "To a sweeter, more beautiful girl I could not say, 'Merry Christmas 1977. Love, Roy Moore D.A. 12-22-1977 Old Hickory House.'"

A sixth accuser came forward on Wednesday, saying Moore grabbed her rear end while she was in his office on legal business in 1991.

Moore has called the allegations “completely false” and threatened to sue media outlets reporting them. He also says he did not know Corfman and Nelson, though he has acknowledged knowing two other women who say he pursued relationships with them when they were teenagers. The former chief justice has also accused Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., of trying to undermine his candidacy

McConnell said earlier this week he believes Moore’s accusers. The women have stood by their stories.