if roy moore did not try to have sex with his accusers what did he really do

Leigh Corfman, left, in a photo from 1979, when she was about 14. At right, from top, Wendy Miller around age 16, Debbie Wesson Gibson around historic period 17 and Gloria Thacker Deason around age xviii. (Family unit photos)

Leigh Corfman says she was fourteen years quondam when an older man approached her outside a courtroom in Etowah County, Ala. She was sitting on a wooden bench with her female parent, they both recall, when the man introduced himself every bit Roy Moore.

Information technology was early on 1979 and Moore — at present the Republican nominee in Alabama for a U.S. Senate seat — was a 32-year-old banana district attorney. He struck up a conversation, Corfman and her female parent say, and offered to watch the daughter while her mother went within for a child custody hearing.

"He said, 'Oh, you don't want her to go in at that place and hear all that. I'll stay out here with her,' " says Corfman'southward mother, Nancy Wells, 71. "I idea, how nice for him to want to have intendance of my lilliputian girl."

This undated family photo shows Leigh Corfman with her mother, Nancy Wells, around 1979 when Corfman was almost 14 years old. (Family Photo)

Solitary with Corfman, Moore chatted with her and asked for her phone number, she says. Days subsequently, she says, he picked her up around the corner from her house in Gadsden, collection her about 30 minutes to his home in the woods, told her how pretty she was and kissed her. On a 2nd visit, she says, he took off her shirt and pants and removed his clothes. He touched her over her bra and underpants, she says, and guided her hand to impact him over his underwear.

"I wanted it over with — I wanted out," she remembers thinking. "Delight just go this over with. Whatever this is, just get it over." Corfman says she asked Moore to have her home, and he did.

Two of Corfman'due south babyhood friends say she told them at the time that she was seeing an older human being, and ane says Corfman identified the man every bit Moore. Wells says her daughter told her nearly the encounter more than than a decade later, as Moore was becoming more than prominent as a local guess.

Aside from Corfman, 3 other women interviewed past The Washington Post in recent weeks say Moore pursued them when they were between the ages of sixteen and 18 and he was in his early 30s, episodes they say they institute flattering at the time, simply troubling as they got older. None of the three women say that Moore forced them into any sort of human relationship or sexual contact.

Wendy Miller says she was fourteen and working as a Santa'due south helper at the Gadsden Mall when Moore first approached her, and 16 when he asked her on dates, which her mother forbade. Debbie Wesson Gibson says she was 17 when Moore spoke to her high school civics class and asked her out on the get-go of several dates that did not progress beyond kissing. Gloria Thacker Deason says she was an xviii-year-former cheerleader when Moore began taking her on dates that included bottles of Mateus Rosé wine. The legal drinking historic period in Alabama was 19.

Of the four women, the youngest at the time was Corfman, who is the only one who says she had sexual contact with Moore that went beyond kissing. She says they did not have intercourse.

In a written statement, Moore denied the allegations.

"These allegations are completely false and are a desperate political attack past the National Democrat Political party and the Washington Post on this campaign," Moore, now 70, said.

The campaign said in a subsequent statement that if the allegations were truthful they would take surfaced during his previous campaigns, adding "this garbage is the very definition of fake news."

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and other GOP senators on Nov. 9 called on Roy Moore to withdraw from a Senate race in Alabama if allegations of sexual misconduct are true. (The Washington Mail service)

After The Post published this story Th afternoon, Bulk Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) and a scattering of other GOP senators said Moore must stride bated if Corfman's account is truthful.

Co-ordinate to campaign reports, none of the women has donated to or worked for Moore'south Democratic opponent, Doug Jones, or his rivals in the Republican primary, including Sen. Luther Strange, whom he defeated this fall in a runoff election.

Corfman, 53, who works equally a customer service representative at a payday loan business, says she has voted for Republicans in the by iii presidential elections, including for Donald Trump in 2016. She says she thought of confronting Moore personally for years, and nearly came frontward publicly during his first campaign for land Supreme Courtroom in 2000, only decided against it. Her two children were still in schoolhouse then and she worried near how information technology would affect them. She also was concerned that her background — three divorces and a messy financial history — might undermine her credibility.

"There is no ane here that doesn't know that I'm not an angel," Corfman says, referring to her home town of Gadsden.

Corfman described her story consistently in six interviews with The Post. The Post confirmed that her mother attended a hearing at the courthouse in February 1979 through divorce records. Moore'south part was downwards the hall from the courtroom.

Neither Corfman nor any of the other women sought out The Mail service. While reporting a story in Alabama about supporters of Moore'southward Senate campaign, a Mail reporter heard that Moore allegedly had sought relationships with teenage girls. Over the ensuing three weeks, two Mail reporters contacted and interviewed the four women. All were initially reluctant to speak publicly but chose to do and so afterward multiple interviews, saying they idea it was of import for people to know well-nigh their interactions with Moore. The women say they don't know one another.

"I accept prayed over this," Corfman says, explaining why she decided to tell her story now. "All I know is that I can't sit back and let this go on, let him continue without the mask being removed."

This account is based on interviews with more 30 people who said they knew Moore between 1977 and 1982, when he served as an assistant district attorney for Etowah County in northern Alabama, where he grew up.

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Moore was 30 and unmarried when he joined the district chaser'due south office, his offset government job afterwards attending the U.S. Military Academy at W Signal, serving in Vietnam, graduating from law schoolhouse and working briefly equally a lawyer in individual practice in Gadsden, the county seat.

By his account, chronicled in his book "So Help Me God," Moore spent his time as a prosecutor convicting "murderers, rapists, thieves and drug pushers." He writes that it was "around this fourth dimension that I fashioned a plaque of The 10 Commandments on two redwood tablets."

"I believed that many of the young criminals whom I had to prosecute would not have committed criminal acts if they had been taught these rules as children," Moore writes.

Exterior work, Moore writes that he spent his free time building rooms onto a mobile abode in Gallant, a rural area about 25 miles west of Gadsden.

Co-ordinate to colleagues and others who knew him at the time, Moore was rarely seen socializing exterior work. He spent 1 season coaching the Gallant Girls, a softball team that his teenage sister had joined, said several women who played on the squad. He spent time working out at the Gadsden YMCA, co-ordinate to people who encountered him there. And he oftentimes walked, usually alone, effectually the newly opened Gadsden Mall — six feet tall and well-dressed in slacks and a button-down shirt, say several women who worked there at the fourth dimension.

Corfman describes herself every bit a trivial lost — "a typical 14-year-former child of a divorced family unit" — when she says she first met Moore that twenty-four hours in 1979 exterior the court. She says she felt flattered that a grown homo was paying attending to her.

"He was charming and smiley," she says.

After her mother went into the courtroom, Corfman says, Moore asked her where she went to school, what she liked to do and whether he could telephone call her sometime. She remembers giving him her number and says he called non long later. She says she talked to Moore on her telephone in her bedroom, and they made plans for him to pick her up at Alcott Road and Riley Street, around the corner from her firm.

"I was kind of dizzy, excited, yous know? An older guy, y'all know?" Corfman says, adding that her merely sexual feel at that bespeak had been kissing boys her age.

She says that it was dark and cold when he picked her up, and that she idea they were going out to swallow. Instead, she says, he collection her to his house, which seemed "far, far away."

"I call up the further I got from my house, the more nervous I got," Corfman says.

She remembers an unpaved driveway. She remembers going inside and him giving her alcohol on this visit or the next, and that at some point she told him she was fourteen. She says they sat and talked. She remembers that Moore told her she was pretty, put his arm effectually her and kissed her, and that she began to feel nervous and asked him to have her domicile, which she says he did.

Before long later, she says, he chosen again, and picked her up over again at the same spot.

"This was a new feel, and it was exciting and fun and scary," Corfman says, explaining why she went back. "Information technology was just like this roller-coaster ride you've not been on."

She says that Moore drove her back to the same house subsequently night, and that before long she was lying on a blanket on the floor. She remembers Moore disappearing into another room and coming out with nothing on but "tight white" underwear.

She remembers that Moore kissed her, that he took off her pants and shirt, and that he touched her through her bra and underpants. She says that he guided her hand to his underwear and that she yanked her hand back.

"I wasn't fix for that — I had never put my manus on a homo's penis, much less an erect one," Corfman says.

She remembers thinking, "I don't desire to practise this" and "I demand to get out of here." She says that she got dressed and asked Moore to take her home, and that he did.

The legal age of consent in Alabama, then and at present, is 16. Under Alabama police in 1979, and today, a person who is at to the lowest degree 19 years old who has sexual contact with someone older than 12 and younger than 15 has committed sexual abuse in the second degree. Sexual contact is divers every bit touching of sexual or intimate parts. The crime is a misdemeanor punishable by up to one year in jail.

The law then and now as well includes a section on enticing a child younger than sixteen to enter a home with the purpose of proposing sexual intercourse or fondling of sexual and genital parts. That is a felony punishable past up to 10 years in prison.

In Alabama, the statute of limitations for bringing felony charges involving sexual abuse of a small-scale in 1979 would have run out three years afterwards, and the time frame for filing a ceremonious complaint would have ended when the alleged victim turned 21, according to Child United states of america, a nonprofit research and advocacy grouping at the Academy of Pennsylvania.

Corfman never filed a police report or a civil suit.

She says that after their last see, Moore called again, but that she institute an excuse to avoid seeing him. She says that at some point during or soon after her meetings with Moore, she told two friends in vague terms that she was seeing an older man.

Betsy Davis, who remains friendly with Corfman and now lives in Los Angeles, says she clearly remembers Corfman talking about seeing an older man named Roy Moore when they were teenagers. She says Corfman described an encounter in which the older man wore nothing merely tight white underwear. She says she was business firm with Corfman that seeing someone every bit old as Moore was out of bounds.

"I recall talking to her and telling her information technology's not a good thought," Davis says. "Considering nosotros were so immature."

A second friend, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of losing her job, has a similar memory of a teenage Corfman telling her almost seeing an older man.

Later talking to her friends, Corfman says, she began to feel that she had done something wrong and kept it a hole-and-corner for years.

"I felt responsible," she says. "I felt similar I had done something bad. And it kind of ready the course for me doing other things that were bad."

She says that her teenage life became increasingly reckless with drinking, drugs, boyfriends, and a suicide attempt when she was 16.

As the years went on, Corfman says, she did non share her story about Moore partly because of the problem in her life. She has had three divorces and financial bug. While living in Arizona, she and her 2nd hubby started a screen-press business that fell into debt. They filed for defalcation protection three times, once in 1991 with $139,689 in unpaid claims brought by the Internal Revenue Service and other creditors, according to court records.

In 2005, Corfman paid a fine for driving a boat without lights. In 2010, she was working at a convenience store when she was charged with a misdemeanor for selling beer to a modest. The charge was dismissed, courtroom records testify.

****

This undated photograph shows Gloria Thacker Deason when she was about 18. (Family photo)

The three other women who spoke to The Post say that Moore asked them on dates when they were between 16 and 18 and he was in his early 30s.

Gloria Thacker Deason says she was 18 and Moore was 32 when they met in 1979 at the Gadsden Mall, where she worked at the jewelry counter of a department store called Pizitz. She says she was attending Gadsden State Customs College and nonetheless living at dwelling house.

"My mom was really, really strict and my curfew was 10:30 but she would permit me stay out later with Roy," says Deason, who is now 57 and lives in Northward Carolina. "She just felt similar I would be safe with him. . . . She thought he was good husband fabric."

Deason says that they dated off and on for several months and that he took her to his house at to the lowest degree 2 times. She says their physical human relationship did not get further than kissing and hugging.

"He liked Eddie Rabbitt and I liked Freddie Mercury," Deason says, referring to the country vocalist and the British rocker.

She says that Moore would option her up for dates at the mall or at college basketball games, where she was a cheerleader. She remembers changing out of her compatible before they went out for dinners at a pizzeria called Mater's, where she says Moore would club bottles of Mateus Rosé, or at a Chinese restaurant, where she says he would order her tropical cocktails at a time when she believes she was younger than 19, the legal drinking age.

"If Mother had known that, she would have had a hissy fit," says Deason, who says she turned 19 in May 1979, after she and Moore started dating.

This undated family photograph shows Wendy Miller around the time she was 16. (Family photo)

Effectually the same time that Deason says she met Moore at the jewelry counter, Wendy Miller says that Moore approached her at the mall, where she would spend fourth dimension with her mom, who worked at a photograph booth at that place. Miller says this was in 1979, when she was 16.

She says that Moore's face was familiar because she had showtime met him two years before, when she was dressed as an elf and working as a Santa's helper at the mall. She says that Moore told her she looked pretty, and that two years later, he began request her out on dates in the presence of her mother at the photo booth. She says she had a boyfriend at the time, and declined.

Her female parent, Martha Brackett, says she refused to grant Moore permission to date her xvi-year-old daughter.

"I'd say, 'Y'all're too old for her . . . let'south not rob the cradle,' " Brackett recalls telling Moore.

Miller, who is now 54 and still lives in Alabama, says she was "flattered past the attention."

"At present that I've gotten older," she says, "the idea that a grown man would want to take out a teenager, that'southward icky to me."

This undated family unit photo shows Debbie Wesson Gibson when she was about 17. (Family photograph)

Debbie Wesson Gibson says that she was 17 in the spring of 1981 when Moore spoke to her Etowah Loftier School civics class most serving as the assistant district attorney. She says that when he asked her out, she asked her female parent what she would say if she wanted to date a 34-year-quondam man. Gibson says her mother asked her who the man was, and when Gibson said "Roy Moore," her mother said, "I'd say you were the luckiest girl in the world."

Amidst locals in Gadsden, a town of about 47,000 dorsum then, Moore "had this godlike, well-nigh deity condition — he was a hometown boy made good," Gibson says, "West Signal and so forth."

Gibson says that they dated for two to three months, and that he took her to his firm, read her poetry and played his guitar. She says he kissed her once in his bedroom and once by the pool at a local country club.

"Looking back, I'm glad nix bad happened," says Gibson, who at present lives in Florida. "As a mother of daughters, I realize that our age deviation at that fourth dimension made our dating inappropriate."

****

By 1982, Moore was past his own account in his volume causing a stir in the district attorney'southward office for his willingness to criticize the workings of the local legal system. He convened a chiliad jury to look into what he alleged were funding issues in the sheriff's office. In response, Moore writes, the state bar clan investigated him for going against the advice of the district attorney, an inquiry that was dismissed.

Presently after, Moore quit and began his beginning political entrada for the county's circuit courtroom judge position. He lost overwhelmingly, and left Alabama shortly thereafter, heading to Texas, where he says in his book that he trained as a kickboxer, and to Australia, where he says he lived on a ranch for a year wrangling cattle.

He returned to Gadsden in 1984 and went into individual constabulary practice. In 1985, at age 38, he married Kayla Kisor, who was 24. The two are still married.

A few years subsequently, Moore began his rise in Alabama politics and into the national spotlight.

In 1992, he became a excursion court gauge and hung his wooden 10 Commandments plaque in his court.

In 2000, he was elected chief justice of Alabama'southward Supreme Court, and he presently installed a v,280-pound granite Ten Commandments monument in the judicial building.

In 2003, he was dismissed from the demote for ignoring a federal court order to remove the monument, and became known nationally every bit "The Ten Commandments Gauge."

Moore was once more elected primary justice of the Alabama Supreme Court in 2012, and was again dismissed for ignoring a judicial order, this time for instructing probate judges not to issue marriage licenses to same-sexual practice couples.

Roy Moore, a 2018 U.South. Senate candidate from Alabama, shared remarks at the Values Voter Summit on October. 13. (C-Span)

All of this has made Moore a hero to many Alabama voters, who consider him a stalwart Christian willing to stand for their values. In a September Republican main for the seat vacated by Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Moore defeated the appointed sitting senator, Luther Strange, who was backed by President Trump and other party leaders in Washington. Moore faces the Democratic nominee, Doug Jones, in a special election scheduled for December. 12.

On a visit home in the mid-1990s to encounter her mother and stepfather in Alabama, Corfman says, she saw Moore'south photo in the Gadsden Times.

" 'Mother, do you remember this guy?' " Wells says Corfman said at the time.

That's when Corfman told her, Wells recalls. Her daughter said that non long after the court hearing in 1979, Moore took her to his house. Wells says that her daughter conveyed to her that Moore had behaved inappropriately.

"I was horrified," Wells says.

Years later, Corfman says, she saw a segment about Moore on ABC News's "Proficient Forenoon America." She says she threw up.

There were times, Corfman says, she thought nigh confronting Moore. At one point during the late 1990s, she says, she became so aroused that she drove to the parking lot outside Moore'southward office at the canton courthouse in Gadsden. She sat there for a while, she says, rehearsing what she might say to him.

" 'Recall me?' " she imagined herself maxim.

Read more:

Roy Moore disrupts Senate race in Alabama

A brusque history of Roy Moore's controversial interpretations of the Bible.

Roy Moore tried to fit in with Senate Republicans for a day.

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Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/woman-says-roy-moore-initiated-sexual-encounter-when-she-was-14-he-was-32/2017/11/09/1f495878-c293-11e7-afe9-4f60b5a6c4a0_story.html

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