Disgraced Alabama Supreme Court judge Roy Moore, in the midst of a campaign for the state's vacant Senate seat, is now caught up in a new controversy over charges of sexual abuse of a 14-year-old girl while he was a 32-year-old district attorney.
14-year-old Leigh Corfman was at the Etowah County courthouse with her mother in 1979. Roy Moore, who was the district attorney at the time, offered to watch the girl while her mother went inside for a child custody hearing. Alone with the girl, Moore chatted with her and asked for her phone number.
Days later, she says, he picked her up around the corner from her house in Gadsden, drove her about 30 minutes to his home in the woods, told her how pretty she was and kissed her. On a second 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 touch him over his underwear.
“I wanted it over with — I wanted out,” she remembers thinking. “Please just get this over with. Whatever this is, just get it over.” Corfman says she asked Moore to take her home, and he did.
Two of Corfman’s childhood friends say she told them at the time that she was seeing an older man, and one says Corfman identified the man as Moore. Wells says her daughter told her about the encounter more than a decade later, as Moore was becoming more prominent as a local judge.
Aside from Corfman, three other women interviewed by The Washington Post in recent weeks say Moore pursued them when they were between the ages of 16 and 18 and he was in his early 30s, episodes they say they found flattering at the time, but troubling as they got older.
In a written statement, Moore denied the allegations. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) and a handful of other GOP senators said Moore must step aside if Corfman’s account is true.
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