Roy Moore Loses Key Defamation Case In Walker County

Former Alabama Chief Justice and U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore has lost his defamation and political conspiracy lawsuit in a Walker County court. Circuit Judge Gregory M. Williams found that Moore failed to provide substantial evidence to prove his allegation that Beverly Nelson defamed him when she claimed he sexually assaulted her in Gadsden in 1977 when she was a teenager.

Moore alleged Nelson made the revelation while he was running as a Republican in a 2017 special election for a vacated Alabama U.S. Senate Seat. Moore lost the special General Election to Democrat Doug Jones and purported Nelson's defamation contributed to his loss and other damages.

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At the time Moore filed the lawsuit his attorney Melissa Isaak issued a statement to the media, "The people of Alabama deserve to know the truth, that the accusations made against Judge Moore during the U. S. Senate campaign arose from a political conspiracy to destroy his personal reputation and defeat him in the special Senate election for United States Senate.

Although over $40 million was spent to defeat Judge Moore, he remained 11 points ahead of his opponent in the polls prior to publication of the accusations.  With only 32 days left before the special election 3 women, (not 9 as the press would have you believe), made false and malicious allegations of sexual misconduct against Judge Moore dating back 40 years.  Those accusations were made within a few days of each other and made only to ruin and destroy the good name, character, and reputation of Judge Moore."

Judge Williams in his ruling wrote that Moore's saying that the assault did not happen does not prove it didn't. "Moore’s responsive pleading is troublesome. It does not contain one single statement of fact that Moore did not commit a sexual transgression against Nelson. The Court is flummoxed as to why if Moore wanted to contradict Nelson did, he not execute an affidavit denying her statement as to the events in 1977. The argument may be that since he filed a defamation claim against Nelson then Moore is denying the truth of her statement. The problem is that relying only on the complaint is improper."

Moore lost a similar suit to another woman, Leigh Corfman, in a Montgomery court in 2022. In 2017 Corfman confirmed a Washington Post story that Moore made sexual advances on her when she was 14 and Moore was in his 30s.

An Etowah County Circuit Court dismissed another Moore defamation suit last year against Deborah Wesson Gibson for making similar allegations.