Reports: Moore Was Known For Hitting On Teenage Girls At The Local Mall

Former Alabama Chief Justice and U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore debates with Sen. Luther Strange on Thursday, Sept. 21, 2017, in Montgomery, Ala. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)
Start your day with TPM.
Sign up for the Morning Memo newsletter

Alabama GOP Senate candidate Roy Moore was a regular at the mall in Gadsden, Alabama in the late 1970s and early 1980s, where he was known to flirt with teenage girls, according to several locals who spoke with the New Yorker and AL.com.

Moore would often go to the mall alone, where he would flirt with teenage girls, and employees at the mall were told to keep an eye on him, according to Wednesday reports from the New Yorker and AL.com.

Greg Legat told both outlets that he worked at the mall in the 19080s and that an off-duty police officer, J.D. Thomas, told him to keep an eye out for Moore. Legat told the New Yorker that Thomas said Moore was banned for the mall but did not specify a reason. Thomas would not discuss Moore with the New Yorker when reached by phone.

Jason Nelms, who regularly visited Gadsden Mall as a teenager in the 1980s, told both outlets that he was told that workers had to keep an eye out for an older man who tried to pick up girls at the mall. Nelms said that he was later told the man was Moore, per the New Yorker and AL.com.

Two of the women who spoke to the Washington Post and alleged that Moore pursued them while they were teenagers said that they met Moore at the mall. The Washington Post reported last week that Moore often walked around the Gadsden Mall alone, citing several women who worked there at the time.

The New Yorker was not able to confirm on the record that Moore was banned from the Gadsden Mall, but several unnamed locals told the magazine that Moore was not allowed at the mall. However, more than a dozen people told the New Yorker that they had heard that Moore was banned from the mall, including former law enforcement officers.

Etowah County, Alabama resident Sheryl Porter told AL.com that it was widely known in the area that Moore liked to date teenage girls.

“Him liking and dating young girls was never a secret in Gadsden when we were all in high school,” Porter said. “In our neighborhoods up by Noccalula Falls we heard it all the time. Even people at the courthouse know it was a well-known secret.”

Latest Livewire
Comments
Masthead Masthead
Founder & Editor-in-Chief:
Executive Editor:
Managing Editor:
Associate Editor:
Editor at Large:
General Counsel:
Publisher:
Head of Product:
Director of Technology:
Associate Publisher:
Front End Developer:
Senior Designer: