Moore campaign disputes accuser’s story of assault

GOP Senate candidate Roy Moore is attempting to discredit the story of one of his accusers, who alleges he sexually assaulted her outside of an Alabama diner when she was 16 years old. 

The Moore campaign released a series of bullet points on Monday that contest the account Beverly Young Nelson gave during a press conference with attorney Gloria Allred last week, comparing statements provided by former employees and patrons of Olde Hickory House with her remarks.

The campaign points to the accounts of four unidentified witnesses including “two former waitresses and two former patrons” who say they never saw Moore at the restaurant, while Nelson said that he regularly visited when he served as the district attorney of Etowah County. 

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“Nelson claimed that Judge Roy Moore came in almost every night and sat at the counter, but former employees state that customers at the counter were served by the bartender or short order cook — not served by the waitresses and had no reason to interact with the wait staff,” the campaign added.

Nelson says that Moore had offered her a ride home around 10 p.m., when her shift ended. Instead of giving her one, she says, he parked his car in a dark spot in the back of the restaurant parking lot, located near the dumpster, where he proceed to grab and grope her as she struggled to get away.

The campaign contested Nelson’s account of the dumpster’s location in relation to the restaurant, and that the attack could have taken place in an unlit area when it is located near “a four-lane highway and had a wrap-around porch with lights all around it.”

The campaign says the dumpsters were on the side of the building, not around back.

And Rhonda Ledbetter, who served as a waitress at Olde Hickory House between 1977 and 1979, disputed that the restaurant closed at 10 p.m., saying she remembered serving past 11 p.m. “because Goodyear was next door, and employees came to eat when their shift ended at 10 p.m.”

Nelson was the fifth woman to come forward and accuse Moore of making sexual advances when they were minors. One says she was only 14 years old at the time.

Moore, who says he never met Nelson, has denied any accusations of sexual misconduct.