Yet another woman came forward this week with an accusation of sexual misconduct against Alabama GOP Senate candidate Roy Moore.
Gena Richardson told the Washington Post that Moore asked her out several times, twice at the Gadsden mall and once in a phone call to her high school. When she did eventually go on a date with Moore, he gave her an unwanted kiss at the end of the evening, she told the Post.
The Wednesday night report in the Washington Post with stories from Richardson and three other women followed a report from AL.com with allegations from two women earlier on Wednesday. One woman told AL.com that Moore asked her out when she was 17 years old and another said Moore groped her when she was 28 years old. These women join several others who have accused Moore of unwanted romantic or sexual advances while they were teenagers and he was in his 30s. The Washington Post first reported on the allegations last week.
Moore has denied all of the allegations against him, despite the steady stream of women now accusing him of inappropriate conduct. Republican leaders in Congress have called for him to drop out of the Senate race, but he has refused.
Richardson told the Washington Post that she first encountered Moore while working at the Gadsden mall, where Moore was known to roam and hit on teenage girls. Richardson said that in her first encounter with Moore, he asked her where she went to school and for her phone number. She declined to give him her number, but he called her at her high school and asked her out again just a few days later, she told the Post. On that call she told him that she would be at work on Friday and Saturday, telling the Post that she was “so naive, and so not worldly.”
That weekend, Moore approached Richardson at work and suggested they see a movie, she said. After the movie, Moore offered to drive Richardson to her car, which was parked further away in a different parking lot, Richardson said. When they got to her car, Moore chatted with her and then gave her an unwanted, “forceful” kiss, Richardson said.
“It was a man kiss — like really deep tongue. Like very forceful tongue. It was a surprise. I’d never been kissed like that,” she told the Washington Post. “And the minute that happened, I got scared then. I really did. Something came over me that scared me. And so I said, ‘I’ve got to go, because my curfew is now.’ ”
Kayla McLaughlin, Richardson’s co-worker at the mall at the time, told the Post that Richardson told her about the incident afterward. McLaughlin said that Moore would come into the mall regularly and that she would warn Richardson when Moore came into the store where they worked.
Two other women described Moore’s behavior at the mall to the Post. Becky Gray said that when she was 22, Moore repeatedly asked her out while she was working at the mall, and she repeatedly declined. She told the Post that his behavior made her uncomfortable, as he would linger near where she worked, and she complained about him to her manager.
Phyllis Smith, who worked at the mall as a teenager, told the Washington Post that Moore never approached her personally, but that she was very aware that he would hit on other teenage girls. She said the teen girls working there would tell each other “just make yourself scarce when Roy’s in here, he’s just here to bother you, don’t pay attention to him and he’ll go away.’ ”
