Alabama GOP Senate candidate Roy Moore may have been banned from his hometown mall for annoying teenage girls, amid growing allegations that he pursued teenage girls in his 30s, a new report says.
State and local figures have heard either at the time or in years since that Moore had been banned from the Gadsden Mall because he badgered teenage girls there, the New Yorker reported Monday.
“It’s a rumor I’ve heard for years,” Teresa Jones, a deputy district attorney for Etowah County in the early 1980s, told the New Yorker. Jones clarified though and said she could not confirm that he had actually been banned, although she told CNN last week it was “common knowledge” Moore dated high school girls.
Local law enforcement also could not confirm Moore had actually been banned, but they had heard about Moore’s reputation at the mall.
“The general knowledge at the time when I moved here was that this guy is a lawyer cruising the mall for high-school dates,” an anonymous officer told the New Yorker.
“I was told by a girl who worked at the mall that he’d been run off from there, from a number of stores. Maybe not legally banned, but run off,” the officer added. “I heard from one girl who had to tell the manager of a store at the mall to get Moore to leave her alone.”
Four women told the Washington Post on the record last week about their alleged interactions with Moore in a piece published Thursday. They said the former judge took them on dates and brought them back to his home, despite the fact he was nearly twice their age and they were between the ages of 14 and 18.
Leigh Corfman said Moore initiated sexual contact with her when she was 14 years old at Moore’s home. She said she did not have intercourse with Moore and requested to be taken home.
A fifth woman, Beverly Young Nelson, came forward Monday and said Moore sexually assaulted her when she was 16. She said Moore offered to drive her home from work on night, but instead parked in parking lot behind her restaurant. She alleges he groped her and grabbed her neck to “force my head onto his crotch.”
Moore, who won Alabama’s GOP primary in September, has denied the accusations and has so far refused to drop out of the Senate race.
