An Alabama woman accused the state’s Republican Senate nominee Roy Moore of initiating a sexual encounter with her when she was 14 years old and he was 32, the Washington Post reported on Thursday.
Leigh Corfman told the Washington Post that Moore asked her for her phone number in 1979, when she was 14 years old, as she sat outside a courtroom while her mother was inside for a hearing.
Days later, Corfman said, Moore drove her to his home, complimented her appearance, and kissed her. During a second visit to Moore’s home, Corfman told the Washington Post, Moore removed his and her clothes, touched her over her underwear, and guided her hand to do the same over his “tight white” undergarments.
Corfman told the Washington Post, “I wasn’t ready for that — I had never put my hand on a man’s penis, much less an erect one.”
“I wanted it over with — I wanted out,” Corfman told the Washington Post. She said she was thinking, “Please just get this over with. Whatever this is, just get it over.”
Corfman told the Washington Post that she and Moore did not have intercourse, and that after she dressed, she asked Moore to take her home, and he did.
The age of consent in Alabama is 16 years of age.
The Washington Post reported that two of Corfman’s childhood friends said she told them she was involved with an older man, and one said Corfman identified Moore in particular.
Nancy Wells, Corfman’s mother, told the Washington Post that Corfman told her about the encounter more than a decade later.
The Washington Post reported that three other women said Moore pursued them when he was in his early 30s and they were in their teens, between the ages of 16 and 18, but none of them said Moore coerced them into sexual encounters.
Wendy Miller told the Washington Post that Moore first approached her when she was 14 years old, and asked her on dates when she was 16 years old. Her mother squashed the latter, according to Miller.
Debbie Wesson Gibson told the Washington Post that Moore asked her out when she was 17 years old and that they went on several dates but their physical involvement was limited to kissing.
Gloria Thacker Deason told the Washington Post that Moore began taking her on dates that involved alcohol when she was 18 years old. The legal drinking age in Alabama, according to the Washington Post, was 19 years of age.
Moore denied the claims in the report.
“These allegations are completely false and are a desperate political attack by the National Democrat Party and the Washington Post on this campaign,” Moore said in a statement to the Washington Post.
In a statement to reporters, Moore’s campaign called the allegations a “last ditch Hail Mary” by “national liberal organizations.”
The campaign noted that the Washington Post’s editorial board endorsed Democratic candidate Doug Jones and claimed the Washington Post has “engaged in a systematic campaign to distort the truth about the Judge’s record and career and derail his campaign” for months.
“In fact, just two days ago, the Foundation for Moral Law sent a retraction demand to the Post for the false stories they wrote about the Judge’s work and compensation,” the campaign said. “After over 40 years of public service, if any of these allegations were true, they would have been made public long before now.”
Moore has a long history of controversial comments, many related to sexuality. In 2005, he said homosexual activity should be illegal and compared it to bestiality. In November 2016, he said a Supreme Court ruling that required states to license and recognize same-sex marriage was “even worse in a sense” than Dred Scott.
In October, he said that the federal judge who blocked President Donald Trump’s policy that would have excluded transgender people from military service “should be impeached,” and incorrectly claimed the American Psychiatric Association considered “transgenderism to be a mental disorder” until 2013.
Elected Republicans have nevertheless embraced him for his party affiliation.
This post has been updated.
