Controversial former Senate candidate Roy Moore will appear in U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia Monday to argue against a motion to change the venue of a lawsuit he filed against comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, Showtime, and CBS.
Moore sued Cohen last year after the actor tricked Moore into flying to Washington and accepting a fake award commemorating Israel. During the segment, Cohen was disguised as Gen. Erran Morad, a purported Israeli terrorism expert and a character on Cohen’s show “Who is America,” which aired on Showtime.
Cohen, channeling the persona of Morad, demonstrated to Moore a fake device that he said could be used to detect sex offenders. Cohen waved the wand over Moore and it began beeping. Cohen said it must be faulty, but it didn’t beep when waved over another man. Moore said he was not a pedophile and ended the interview.
Moore, a former judge from Alabama lost the 2017 special election to replace then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions. His campaign was dogged by accusations of sexual misconduct, including that he initiated a sexual encounter with a 14-year-old girl when he was in his 30s. The 72-year-old is poised for yet another Senate run in 2020 in what could be a rematch against Democratic Sen. Doug Jones.
Moore is suing, along with his wife, “As a direct and proximate result of Defendants and their agents’ extreme, outrageous and malicious defamatory conduct.” They are seeking compensatory and punitive damages in excess of $95 million.
In a press release announcing that Moore will be appearing in court Monday, his lawyer Larry Klayman argued that Cohen, Showtime, and CBS are attempting to move the case to New York because they think they will have a “a more favorable venue given the leftist slant of the judiciary” in that district.
“The Defendants can try to run to New York City where they obviously believe that a leftist jurist will be more inclined to dismiss the case, but they cannot hide from the egregiousness of their cheap and vile acts,” Klayman wrote. “I am confident that Judge Hogan will see through this charade and allow the case to go to a jury of the parties’ peers in the place where this case belongs, the District of Columbia.”
Cohen duped a number of political figures during the course of the show, including former Vice President Dick Cheney, former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, Sarah Palin, and others.
