Roy Moore’s campaign seized on new revelations about a yearbook connected to the sexual misconduct allegations about the GOP Senate hopeful on Friday, saying the development raises new questions about one of his accusers.
Beverly Young Nelson has accused Moore of sexually assaulting her decades ago, when she was a teenager and Moore was an adult. To prove that the two knew each other at the time, Nelson has publicized a high school yearbook message she says was written by Moore around the time of the assault.
But after Nelson admitted on Friday that she made her own notes below that signature — although not the signature itself — Moore’s campaign is arguing that the revelation undercuts the veracity of her entire story.
“We hoped that when you have allegations that are 40 years old that somehow, something can come out to prove that it’s not true. Guess what? It has,” Moore lawyer Phillip Jauregui said Friday.
Jauregui pointed to the initial press conference where Nelson and her lawyer, Gloria Allred, first leveled the accusations and presented the yearbook. At that event, Allred read the inscription from the yearbook in full, giving no indication that anyone but Moore was responsible for the content.
But when asked by an ABC News reporter whether she made “some notes underneath” Moore’s alleged signature, Nelson responded “yes.” Allred later clarified that she added in the time and place where Moore made the signature as a reminder, but was not explicit about when that addition took place.
“What they said then was either a lie, or what they said today was a lie. And the voters will have to decide were they lying then or lying now,” Jauregui said during the campaign press conference.
Nelson stands by the rest of her accusation, that Moore tried to assault her after offering her a ride home from work when she was 16 years old.
But her admission about adding notes to the signature prompted Jauregui and the Moore campaign to reissue a call to turn over the yearbook for independent analysis.
Nelson’s allegations are just one of a handful from women who say that Moore pursued them as teenagers decades ago, with some alleging various degrees of sexual misconduct.
The allegations have roiled next week’s special election, prompting a tightening of the race between Moore and Democrat Doug Jones.