In his first filing responding to the lawsuit brought by an accuser of sexual misconduct, former Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore has asked a judge to change the venue of the case.

Leigh Corfman filed her lawsuit last month in Montgomery County Circuit Court.

Moore wants the lawsuit shifted to Etowah County.

Corfman leveled perhaps the most serious charges against Moore last November, telling The Washington Post that Moore undressed her and touched her over her underwear during an encounter when she was 14 years old and Moore was in his 30s. That encounter, according to Corfman's lawsuit, occurred at Moore's house in Etowah County.

Moore has repeatedly denied the accusation.

Moore lost the election to Democrat Doug Jones by less than 2 percent of the vote.

The filing by Moore attorneys Kenneth Shinbaum and Julian McPhillips of Montgomery did not address the merits of Corfman's lawsuit. Instead, it simply argued that the case should be moved to Etowah County - where both Moore and Corfman reside.

The motion was filed Friday night.

Corfman filed a defamation lawsuit against Moore on Jan. 4 because Moore and his spokespeople "have defamed Ms. Corfman, repeatedly and in all forms of media, calling her a liar and questioning her motivation for publicly disclosing that Mr. Moore sexually abused her in 1979 when she was a 14-year-old high school freshman and he was a 32-year-old assistant district attorney."

In seeking to relocate the case from Montgomery County to Etowah County, Moore's attorney cited case law as precedence for the move as a matter of "convenience."

The motion points out that all parties to the lawsuit - including the Judge Roy Moore for Senate Committee - reside in Etowah County.

"Should this case progress to the fact-finding stage, Etowah County is the situs for witnesses and evidence on the dispositive question of whose version of the events giving rise to Corfman's accusation and Judge Moore's denial are to be believed," the Moore filing said.

"The drama should properly play out where the underlying events at issue are alleged to have occurred - Etowah County - and not where the campaign had an office, now vacated, and a post office box."

Corfman's lawsuit said that Moore described her allegations as "false and malicious" in a lawsuit the candidate filed in Montgomery County Circuit Court on Dec. 27, 2017, in an effort to prevent the certification of the election results.

Moore's filing on Friday said that "under Alabama law, statements made in the course of judicial proceedings are absolutely privileged from civil liability, no matter how false or malicious."

Montgomery County Circuit Judge Roman Ashley Shaul is presiding over the case.

Roy Moore request for venue change by pgattis7719 on Scribd