Accuser in Moore case grateful for support

WASHINGTON – Leigh Corfman, one of the first women to accuse Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore of sexual misconduct, says she’s relieved she’s finally publicly shared her story about Moore groping her when she was a teenager and he was in his 30s.

“I feel like a weight has been lifted,” Corfman told NBC’s TODAY Show on Monday. “But here’s the beauty of what has happened.

The support has been amazing. Women and men have come forward to tell their stories ... because of my courageous actions.”

Corfman is one of nine women who have publicly accused Moore of sexual misconduct. Corfman was one of four women to tell The Washington Post in a story published earlier this month that Moore pursued a relationship with them in the 1970s and 1980s, when they were teenagers and he was in his 30s.

Corfman said she was 14 in 1979 when Moore took her to his home, removed their clothes and guided her hand over his crotch. The age of consent in Alabama, then and now, is 16.

“I was a 14-year-old child trying to play in an adult’s world and he was 32 years old,” Corfman said Monday, noting that at the time she had been reading romance novels. “I was expecting candlelight and roses, but what I got was very different.”

She said it took decades before she stopping blaming herself. “I felt guilty,” she said. “I felt like I was the one that was to blame.’’

Moore, a former state Supreme Court justice, is in a competitive race against Democrat Doug Jones for the Senate seat once held by Republican Jeff Sessions. The election is Dec. 12.

Roy Moore