Former Senate candidate and judge Roy Moore lost his defamation lawsuit against a woman who accused him of touching her when she was 14. Moore, who has long denied the accusations, lost the suit, but so did his accuser who said that he defamed her after the accusations.
The Washington Post reported Wednesday that the Alabama jury decided against both sides in an “emotionally charged trial.”
“Leigh Corfman detailed her allegations in a 2017 Washington Post report, describing how in 1979, Moore, then a 32-year-old assistant district attorney, had touched her over her bra and underpants and guided her hand to touch him over his underwear,” the report recalled.
Corfman filed the suit in 2018 after Moore attacked her for coming forward about her experience. Moore claimed at the time that the story was only an attack to bring him down in the election. He testified that the accusations were “purely political.”
Both Moore and Corfman took the stand but the jury still refused to find for either. Moore was seeking substantial monetary damages, but Corfman was only seeking a ruling that she was defamed.
After Corfman came forward others also surfaced talking about Moore, saying that he had pursued them when they were young teens.
“I never knew Ms. Corfman,” Moore claimed when testifying. “I never knew her, never took her to my home, she was never in my car. I didn’t telephone her. … I don’t know her.”
Corfman said that she had no reason to lie about Moore.