Moore’s accuser admits altering book inscription
GEORGIANA, Ala. — The woman who offered a high school yearbook that she said was signed by Roy Moore as evidence in her sexual misconduct claim against him, admitted on Friday that she wrote some of the words beneath the signature.
The admission by the woman, Beverly Young Nelson, set off a new round of attempts by Moore and his supporters to undermine the allegations that have challenged his Senate campaign.
At a rally Friday in Pensacola, Fla., President Trump taunted Nelson.
“Did you see what happened today? You know, the yearbook? Did you see that? There was a little mistake made,” Trump said, shifting to a singsongy voice. “She started writing things in the yearbook.”
Trump then told the crowd: “Get out and vote for Roy Moore. Do it. Do it.”
But Nelson did not back away from her claim that Moore, the Republican candidate for Senate, groped her and squeezed her neck in the late 1970s when she was 16 and he was about 30, or that he signed her yearbook a couple of weeks earlier, calling her a “sweeter more beautiful girl.”
Four days before the election, the inscription landed back in the spotlight when a reporter for Good Morning America asked Nelson if she had added her own notes beneath the inscription. She admitted that she had.
“Beverly indicates that she added that to remind herself of who Roy Moore was and where and when Mr. Moore signed her yearbook,” her lawyer, Gloria Allred, said hours later at a news conference. She also said a handwriting expert, Arthur Anthony, had examined the signature and found it to be written by Moore. “We look forward to learning if Alabama voters will believe Roy Moore’s accusers or if they will ignore the evidence presented to them,” Allred said.
Moore pounced on the comments to discredit Nelson’s accusations against him, retweeting a Fox News headline saying Nelson “admits she forged part of the yearbook note.”
Fox later changed the headline on its website to “Roy Moore accuser admits she wrote part of yearbook inscription attributed to Alabama Senate candidate.”
The inscription has become a major focus in Moore’s efforts to refute claims by nine women that he made unwanted advances or worse toward them when they were teenagers and he was in his 30s. Chronicle News Services contributed
to this report.