The first woman who came forward to accuse Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore of inappropriate sexual behavior is firing back at his claims that she’s a liar — and questioning how low the hardline religious conservative will go to deny what she says happened.
Leigh Corfman says Moore seduced her when she was just 14 years old, undressing them both in a sexual encounter. After Moore personally called her a liar earlier this week, she fired back with an open letter to AL.com, the state’s largest newspaper group.
“I demand that you stop calling me a liar and attacking my character. Your smears and false denials, and those of others who repeat and embellish them, are defamatory and damaging to me and my family,” she says in the letter. “I am telling the truth, and you should have the decency to admit it and apologize.”
Eight other women have come forward to accuse Moore of inappropriate sexual behavior — including one who says he sexually assaulted her when she was 16 years old — and others have come forward to say it was well known in Moore’s hometown that he sought to date teenage girls. Moore’s campaign has responded by questioning Corfman’s claims as well as her character while providing almost no evidence to back up their own claims, and Moore himself went after her and the other accusers on Monday.
“I do not know these women,” he said Monday. “I have never engaged in sexual misconduct with anyone. This is simply dirty politics.”
That was the final straw for Corfman, who hand-delivered the open letter to the newspaper group on Tuesday.
“When you personally denounced me last night and called me slanderous names, I decided that I am done being silent. What you did to me when I was 14-years old should be revolting to every person of good morals. But now you are attacking my honesty and integrity. Where does your immorality end?” she writes in the letter.
The special election to fill Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ old seat in the Senate is Dec. 12, and recent public and private polling shows a tight race between Moore and Democrat Doug Jones, with the numerous allegations dogging Moore’s campaign in the solidly Republican state.
