Two more women have come forward on the record accusing Roy Moore of sexual misconduct directed at teenagers, the latest in a growing controversy spiraling around the candidate for U.S. Senate in Alabama.
While working at Sears at the Gadsden Mall, then-17-year-old Gena Richardson was approached by Moore, whom she said was already infamously known among employees as a customer to “watch out for.”
According to a Washington Post published Wednesday, Moore asked Richardson for her phone number but she declined, saying her father wouldn’t approve. However, a few days later, she was called down to her high school principal’s office where Moore was waiting for her on the phone.
“I said ‘Hello?’” Richardson told the Post. “And the male on the other line said, ‘Gena, this is Roy Moore.’ I was like, ‘What?!’ He said, ‘What are you doing?’ I said, ‘I’m in trig class.’”
Then 30-year-old Moore asked her out on the phone call and again, in person, a few days later at Sears. Eventually, she agreed to see a movie with him after work. After the film, Richardson said Moore drove her to her car in a dark parking lot where he forcefully kissed her.
Similarly, then 18-year-old Phyllis Smith was working at Brooks in the Gadsden Mall where it was well-known amongst female employees to avoid Roy Moore whenever he came in the store.
Smith told the Post that the employees warned each other of his presence, “just make yourself scarce when Roy’s in here, he’s just here to bother you, don’t pay attention to him and he’ll go away.’”
Gadsden Mall is the same mall the New Yorker reported Moore had been banned from because he badgered girls there.
Smith and Richardson are now the eighth and ninth women to accuse the Moore of sexual misconduct. Their accounts come just hours after Moore’s legal defense denied all accounts.
