A woman has accused Roy Moore — the Republican nominee for the US Senate in Alabama — of initiating a sexual encounter with her when she was underage, the Washington Post reported on Thursday, prompting the Republican Senate leader to call on Moore to step aside if the story turns out to be true.
Moore — the state's former chief judge who was a 32-year-old Alabama prosecutor at the time and is now 70 — vehemently denied the allegations, labelling them as "fake news", "completely false, and a desperate political attack".
The Post said it interviewed more than 30 people, including mothers and friends of the girls, for their investigative report.
Reuters, however, was unable to independently confirm any of the allegations.
Leigh Corfman, now 53, told the Post that she met Moore outside court in 1979 when her mother was inside for a child custody hearing after Moore offered to watch her.
“He said, ‘Oh, you don’t want her to go in there and hear all that. I’ll stay out here with her,’” Nancy Wells — Corfman’s 71-year-old mother — said, as per the Post. “I thought, how nice for him to want to take care of my little girl.”
At the time an assistant district attorney, Moore had asked Corfman, then 14 years old, for her number and later took her to his home, where they engaged in sexual activity before she asked to be taken home, Corfman said.
Moore guided her to touch him, she told the Post, adding that she "wasn't ready for that".
According to the Post, Corfman said Moore — after taking her into his house in the woods near Gadsden, Alabama — removed her clothes and touched her inappropriately.
The girl then told Moore to drive her home. "I wanted it over with — I wanted out," she said she thought to herself. “Please just get this over with. Whatever this is, just get it over.”
Corfman said she thought of confronting Moore personally for years and almost came forward publicly during his first campaign for state Supreme Court in 2000, but decided against it.
Her two children were still in school then and she worried about how it would affect them.
"This garbage is the very definition of fake news and intentional defamation," his campaign responded via an emailed statement, adding, that Moore "is winning with a double-digit lead".
"So it is no surprise, with just over four weeks remaining, in a race for the US Senate with national implications, that the Democratic Party and the country's most liberal newspaper would come up with a fabrication of this kind."
"After over 40 years of public service (by Moore), if any of these allegations were true, they would have been made public long before now," the Moore campaign added.
Explaining why she decided to tell her story now, Corfman commented, “All I know is that I can’t sit back and let this continue, let him continue without the mask being removed.”
Neither Moore nor his campaign responded to requests for further comment.
Moore, a conservative Christian, has consistently led in polls over Doug Jones — his Democratic opponent — in a state dominated by Republicans.
Jones' campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the Post story.
The Washington Post story also quoted three other women who said Moore dated them when they were between 16 and 18 years old and he was in his early 30s, though none said they had sexual contact with Moore.
Two of the women spoke of Moore providing them glasses of wine when they were under the legal drinking age of 19.
Wendy Miller said she was 14 and working as a Santa’s helper at the Gadsden Mall when Moore first approached her, and 16 when he asked her on dates, which her mother forbade.
Debbie Wesson Gibson says she was 17 when Moore spoke to her high school civics class and asked her out on the first of several dates that did not progress much.
Gloria Thacker Deason was 18 in 1979 when she began dating 32-year-old Moore after he approached her while she worked at a jewellery counter in a local mall.
At the time a cheerleader, the underage Deason was offered bottles of Mateus Rosé wine by Moore; they dated on and off for several months, but their physical relationship did not go much further, she told the Post.
It is important to note that enticing a child under 16 into one's home for sexual purposes is a felony in Alabama punishable by up to 10 years in prison, but the statute of limitations has expired, the Post reported.
The account immediately reverberated through Washington, with Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell calling on Moore to drop out of the race "if these allegations are true".
Several other Republicans echoed that sentiment.
Republican Senator John McCain said Moore should step aside, calling the allegations "deeply disturbing and disqualifying".
Here are the other reactions from social media.
Kyle Griffin — a journalist for a leading American media outlet — tweeted a list of people who have endorsed Moore before the Post's explosive reportage.
On the other hand, according to Jim Ziegler — the state auditor of Alabama — Moore is as “clean as a hound’s tooth”,the Washington Examiner reported.
“The allegations are that a man in his early 30s dated teenage girls,” sometime “almost 40 years ago”, he said, before adding that “Moore fell in love with one of the younger women”.
Moore prevailed over several Republican opponents in a closely contested primary that saw US President Donald Trump, McConnell, and most establishment Republicans back the incumbent Luther Strange.
Alabama's special election to fill the seat left vacant by Jeff Sessions, whom Trump appointed as US attorney general, is December 12.
Moore became a national figure in the early 2000s when he lost his position as Alabama Chief Justice after refusing a court order to remove a Ten Commandments monument from outside the courthouse.
After winning his position back in 2012, he was again forced out after defying the US Supreme Court decision legalizing gay marriage by ordering probate judges not to give marriage licenses to same-sex couples.