Moore Accuser: He 'Preyed Upon' Me When I Was Just 14

Leigh Corfman describes incident in her first TV interview
By Evann Gastaldo,  Newser Staff
Posted Nov 20, 2017 12:40 PM CST

Leigh Corfman, the woman who came forward accusing Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore of sexually abusing her as a teen, made her first TV appearance Monday on the Today show and recounted the experience she says she had with Moore, who was 32 at the time. After he met Corfman at a courthouse, Moore called and asked her to meet, she says; she agreed without telling her mother. The second time they met, "he basically laid out some blankets on the floor of his living room and proceeded to seduce me, I guess you would say," says Corfman, who was 14 at the time. "He removed my clothing, he left the room and came back in wearing his white underwear, and he touched me over my clothing—what was left of it. He tried to get me to touch him as well, and at that point I pulled back and said that I was not comfortable."

She says he took her home at that point, and she never met with him again, though he did call her to ask. She says at the time, she had been reading romance novels and was "a 14-year-old child trying to play in an adult's world." Though she says she didn't think at the time that she'd been molested, "because it wasn't part of my vocabulary," the incident affected her for decades—she struggled with guilt and feeling she was to blame for what had happened—and she now realizes she "didn't deserve to have a 32-year-old man prey upon" her. She told family and friends what happened after the incident, but never came forward publicly until the Washington Post approached her, because she wanted to keep her children safe from public scrutiny. Moore's wife, Kayla, has accused some of her husband's accusers of being paid to tell their stories, which Corfman denied: "If anything, this has cost me." (More Roy Moore stories.)

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