attorney

‘I Thought He Was Going to Rape Me': New Sex Assault Allegation Hits Moore

"'I am the district attorney of Etowah County,'" she recalled he said. "'If you tell anyone about this, no one will believe you'"

Another woman came forward Monday afternoon to accuse Alabama GOP Senate nominee Roy Moore of sexual misconduct, alleging that when she was 16 years old, he groped her in a parked car and tried to force her to have sex with him while she fought him off.

Beverly Young Nelson held a news conference Monday with attorney Gloria Allred.

Nelson said that Moore, a regular customer at the Gadsden, Alabama, diner where she worked, tried to force himself on her in his car one night after initially offering her a ride home when her boyfriend was late picking her up.

She said that she trusted him because he was a district attorney at the time but grew alarmed when he parked his car behind the restaurant where there weren't any lights. 

"I tried to open my car door to leave, but he reached over and locked it so I could not get out," she said. "I tried fighting him off, while yelling at him to stop, but instead of stopping he began squeezing my neck attempting to force my head onto his crotch."

"I thought he was going to rape me," she said.

Nelson, who dabbed at her eyes with a tissue throughout the press conference, said that at some point Moore gave up, calling her a "child." She said that he allowed her to open the door and she either fell out of the car or he pushed her out.

"'I am the district attorney of Etowah County,'" she recalled he said. "'If you tell anyone about this, no one will believe you.'"

The car's passenger door was still open, Nelson said, as Moore "burned rubber pulling away, leaving me lying there on the cold concrete in the dark."

Nelson said her neck was bruised "black and blue and purple" from the encounter, and she quit her job the following day.

She covered her bruises with makeup in the aftermath and said she did not tell anyone right away what had happened. "I was scared," she said. "I felt that if I told anyone, Mr. Moore would do something to me or my family."

It was two years before Nelson told her sister what happened with Moore that night. She said she only told her mother four years ago, and that the only other person she ever told, prior to Allred, was her current husband John.

"I want Mr. Moore to know that he no longer has any power over me, and I no longer live in fear of him," Nelson said.

She and her husband still live in Alabama, and both were Trump supporters in the most recent presidential election, she said.

"This has nothing to do with Republicans or Democrats. It has everything to do with Mr. Moore's sexual assault when I was a teenager."

Her statement follows a Washington Post report published last week that the 70-year-old Moore had sexual contact with a 14-year-old girl and pursued three other teenagers decades earlier, when he was in his 30s.

Moore had called the allegations a "witch hunt" in a statement shortly before Monday's press conference.

He has refused to quit the race even with pressure mounting, including from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and a growing number of other Republicans in Congress.

Allred called Monday for Moore to answer questions under oath about the allegations before the Senate Judiciary Committee at a public hearing within the next two weeks. 

Copyright AP - Associated Press
Contact Us