Beverly Young Nelson stepped forward Monday as the fifth woman to allege that Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore engaged in inappropriate behavior when she was a teenager and the first to accuse him of behaving violently.
Nelson alleged at an afternoon press conference with prominent attorney Gloria Allred that Moore forced himself on her after offering her a ride home in the late 1970s when she was 16.
She said that Moore was a regular at a restaurant where she worked and that he flirted with her and complimented her long red hair.
Nelson said she had been waiting for her boyfriend to pick her up after getting off work at 10 p.m. when Moore offered the ride.
“I trusted Mr. Moore because he was the district attorney [of Etowah County, Alabama],” Nelson said. “I did not want to wait outside in the cold, so I agreed.”
“I thought he would get on the highway, but instead he drove to the back of the restaurant … he stopped the car and he parked his car in between the dumpster and the back of the restaurant,” Nelson said.
“The area was dark and it was deserted. I was alarmed and I immediately asked him what he was doing. Instead of answering my questions, Mr. Moore reached over and began groping me,” she said. “He reached over and locked it so I could not get out.”
“Instead of stopping,” she continued, “he began squeezing my neck trying to force my head onto his crotch.”
Growing emotional as she told the story, Nelson continued: “I was terrified. he was also trying to pull my shirt off. I thought he was going to rape me … I had tears running down my face. At some point he gave up and he then looked at me and he told me, he said, ‘You’re just a child’ and he said, ‘I’m the district attorney of Etowah County and if you tell anyone about this, no one will ever believe you.'”
Nelson said she disguised bruises with makeup, but told her younger sister two years after the incident. She said she told her mother about the incident about four years ago.
Allred said that Nelson’s younger sister is unlikely to give a public statement regarding the allegations and that Nelson would not be taking press questions, though she may if the Senate Judiciary Committee doesn’t hold a hearing within two weeks.
Nelson showed TV cameras Moore’s alleged yearbook inscription from late 1977. She said she came forward after learning of other accusers, and that her claims have nothing to do with partisan politics.
“My husband and I supported Donald Trump for president,” she said. “This has nothing whatsoever to do with the Republicans or the Democrats.”
Nelson joins four other women who told the Washington Post last week that Moore pursued romantic relationships with them between 1979 and 1982 when they were as young as 14 and he was in his 30s.
Moore is the Republican candidate in the Dec. 12 special election to replace Attorney General Jeff Sessions in the Senate. He faces Democrat Doug Jones in a close race. Republicans aren’t able to swap candidates, but a write-in campaign is possible.
The Moore campaign dismissed the latest claims before they were made, saying in a statement: “Gloria Allred is a sensationalist leading a witch hunt, and she is only around to create a spectacle.”
