A Monday ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Hogan gave a first-round win to comedian Sacha Baron Cohen and Showtime Networks in the lawsuit filed against them by Roy Moore.
Moore, a controversial former Senate candidate from Alabama, and his legal team appeared in the U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia and argued against a change of venue motion filed by lawyers for Cohen and Showtime, which Hogan granted.
Moore sued Cohen and Showtime last year after it aired footage of the former Senate candidate on the comedy show “Who is America.” In the show, Cohen played the part of fictional Israeli terrorism expert Gen. Erran Morad. He tricked Moore into flying to Washington on the pretext of accepting a fake award.
During the segment, Cohen, acting as Morad, showed Moore a machine he claimed was used to detect sex offenders. Cohen demonstrated its use and waved the wand over Moore, eliciting beeps from the device. Cohen, telling Moore the device must be faulty, tested it on another man, and it didn’t beep. Moore ended the interview and said he wasn’t a pedophile.
During the 2017 special Senate election in Alabama, Moore was accused of sexual misconduct. In one instance, he was alleged to have sexually assaulted a 14-year-old girl when he was in his 30s. Moore, 72, ultimately lost the election to Democratic Sen. Doug Jones but appears poised to run for the Senate seat once more in 2020.
Moore, along with his wife, is suing Cohen and Showtime for compensatory and punitive damages in excess of $95 million. Moore’s lawyer, Larry Klayman, said in a Sunday press release that they didn’t want the lawsuit moved to the Southern District of New York because he said a “leftist jurist” would be “more inclined to dismiss the case.”
Hogan sided with Cohen. The defendants highlighted that Moore had signed a consent agreement for his appearance on the show and that the agreement included a clause that said any disputes would be adjudicated in New York.
