WAPO’s Roy Moore Story Alleging Sexual Encounter with 14-Year-Old Girl Omits Crucial Information

WAPO’s Roy Moore Story Alleging Sexual Encounter with 14-Year-Old Girl Omits Crucial Information

Jerry A. Kane

The Washington Post’s (WaPo) November 9 story, “Woman says Roy Moore initiated sexual encounter when she was 14, he was 32” leaves out crucial information and hides the truth from readers.

The Post reported that Leigh Corfman, who was 14 years old in February 1979, was with her mother when she met 32-year-old Roy Moore outside a courtroom in Etowah County, Alabama.

According to the Post, Corfman and her mother, Nancy Wells, said that Moore approached them, introduced himself, started talking, and offered to watch the girl while the mother went into the courtroom for a child custody hearing.

The Post story then transitions to Moore’s alleged conversation with Corfman outside the courtroom and doesn’t mention the custody hearing again except briefly near the end of the piece where the Post verified through divorce records that Wells attended a hearing at the courthouse in February 1979.

The Post did not report any details involving the child custody hearing because the hearing involved the custody of Corfman who had become a problem child for Wells, who was in the courtroom that day to sign over custody to Corfman’s father.

The Post failed to tell its readers:

that Wells had been divorced from Robert R. Corfman since 1974,

that the case to change custody was amicable and involved a joint petition by both parents, and

that the court ordered the 14-year-old Corfman to move in with her father beginning March 4, 1979.

The Post story did not mention the court documents that show Corfman was exhibiting “disciplinary and behavioral problems,” which were cited in the joint petition to change custody as the reason for the court-ordered move.

The documents also show that Corfman’s father lived in Ohatchee, about 22 miles from Gadsden where Corfman and Wells lived, and that he and Wells agreed that moving Corfman to Ohatchee to live with him would be better for the girl.

The Post reported that Corfman said her alleged sexual encounter with Moore had caused her to become reckless in her behavior as a teenager.

“I felt responsible. I felt like I had done something bad. And it [sexual encounter with Moore] kind of set the course for me doing other things that were bad,” Corfman said.

According to the Post, Corfman’s “teenage life became increasingly reckless with drinking, drugs, boyfriends, and a suicide attempt when she was 16.”

The Post would have readers believe the custody hearing, where Moore allegedly met Corfman and arranged meetings with her outside her mother’s home, was something extraneous that had nothing to do with Corfman’s allegations or added anything important to them.

Had the Post reported what went on in the custody hearing, the information contained in the court documents would have contradicted and refuted Corfman’s claim that her reckless behavior as a teenager resulted from her alleged sexual encounters with Moore.

Over a year later, Wells filed a new petition, which stated that Corfman’s “disciplinary problem has improved greatly,” and that she wanted custody of her daughter again. The court agreed and custody was granted October 15, 1980.

Corfman’s improved behavior described in Wells’ petition for custody clearly refutes what Corfman told the Post. The Post reported Corfman said that after her alleged sexual encounter with Moore in ’79, her life “became increasingly reckless with drinking, drugs, boyfriends, and a suicide attempt when she was 16.”

There was but one court case in February 1979, and it was February 21 when Wells voluntarily gave up custody of Corfman to Corfman’s father.

The Post’s November 9 story left out pertinent information contained in the court documents detailing what had taken place that day in a custody hearing when a 14-yar-old girl and her mother claim they met Roy Moore.

It’s shameful that the Post would omit such crucial information to hide the truth from readers. It matters not if the omission of information was intentional or if it was the result of negligence and shoddy research. Such reporting is inexcusable.

Yet the Post’s top editor Marty Baron came out and defended the reporting, calling it a “meticulously reported story about Roy Moore.”

Is it any wonder President Trump and Roy Moore call The Washington Post “fake news?”

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Moore Accuser’s Former Lawyer’s Firm has Ties to Democrat Party

Moore Accuser’s Former Lawyer’s Firm has Ties to Democrat Party

By Jerry A. Kane

Leigh Corfman, the main accuser of Alabama Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore, was, until recently, represented by a lawyer whose law firm has ties to the state’s Democrat Party.

Corfman, who has accused Moore of molesting her 38 years ago in 1979 when she was 14 years old, had been, until very recently, represented by K. Edward Sexton II, a partner in the law firm Gentle Turner Sexton and Harbison LLC.

Sexton’s Alabama law firm, located in Riverchase, an upscale section of the Birmingham suburb, Hoover, is known for mediating and administering multi-billion and multi-million dollar mass tort and class action cases.

The eight-lawyer firm is headed by founding partner Edgar Gentle III, the current Treasurer of the state’s Democrat Party. Gentle’s professional biography says he’s created and administered over $2 Billion in settlements and lists Sexual Assault Civil Tort among his several practice areas.

So, how does 53 year-old Corfman, who has a history of financial problems and bankruptcies and works as a customer service representative at a payday loan business, end up with a lawyer from a firm that specializes in the administration of mass tort and class action settlements and is tied at the hip to the state’s Democrat Party?

For that matter, why would Sexton or his law firm take a case like Corfman’s in the first place? And if he or his firm was paid for services rendered, who paid the bill? And why, pray tell, is he no longer representing her; in fact, when exactly did Sexton become Corfman’s lawyer to being with?

The Washington Post (WAPO) was first to publish Corfman’s unproven allegations against Roy Moore. The Post’s story that featured Corfman’s salacious accusations was published November 9.

Also published November 9 was an AL.com article identifying, Eddie Sexton, as a Hoover attorney representing Corfman:

“An attorney for Leigh Corfman, whose story of a sexual encounter with Roy Moore when he was 32 and she was 14, broke today, said Corfman stands by her story.

Hoover attorney Eddie Sexton told AL.com that Corfman has wanted to publicly talk about the time in 1979 when Moore dated her, but never felt like it was the right time.”

In the November 9 AL.com piece, Sexton said that Corfman had been talking with WAPO reporters for several weeks before WAPO’s November 9 story appeared, which WAPO echoed in its November 9 story:

“Over the ensuing three weeks, two Post reporters contacted and interviewed the four women. All were initially reluctant to speak publicly but chose to do so after multiple interviews …”

In addition to Corfman, WAPO reporters also interviewed three other women, Wendy Miller, Debbie Wesson Gibson, and Gloria Thacker Deason for their November 9 story. None of these women accused Moore of inappropriate sexual contact, and to my knowledge, none of them had attorneys present when they told their stories to WAPO reporters.

Obviously, Sexton’s services had been retained before WAPO published its November 9 story. Questions of when Corfman retained the services of an attorney, or why she retained an attorney went unasked by WAPO reporters.

Corfman submitted an “open letter” published November 28 at AL.com. In it she echoed what her mother, Nancy Wells, had told Arron Klein of Breitbart News November 12.

“When the Washington Post approached me about what you [Moore] did to me as a child, I told them what happened …”

In their November 9 story, WAPO reporters admit that the four women were initially reluctant to speak to WAPO reporters, and  that it was WAPO reporters who sought out the women and made the initial contact:

“Over the ensuing three weeks, two Post reporters contacted and interviewed the four women.”

If the women didn’t initiate contact with WAPO reporters, how did they learn of Moore’s alleged relationships with teenage girls?

“While reporting a story in Alabama about supporters of Moore’s Senate campaign, a Post reporter heard that Moore allegedly had sought relationships with teenage girls.”

Shazam! Serendipity, thy name is Bezos. Unreported 40-year-old allegations just fell out the mouths of Moore supporters to an all-ears WAPO reporter working on a story about Moore supporters during Moore’s Senate campaign.

Lady Luck wasn’t just smiling on WAPO reporters, she was grinning like Cheshire Cat. WAPO reporters didn’t say how they found the women to corroborate what the reporter had heard at the Moore rally?

It was yet another serendipitous find. Voilà! WAPO reporters just happened to stumble upon Corfman, a Republican supporter of Trump who voted for him for President in ’16, and was at that very moment ready to break 38 years of silence, lawyer up, and dump a ton of salacious allegations about Moore just a few weeks outside of a crucial Senate election. Eureka! The sleuths found the kill shot.

What would raise an eyebrow on most people regarding the timing of Corfman’s allegations was nothing more than a facial tic on the WAPO reporters. Corfman, the self-identified Republican and Trump supporter, could’ve come forth with her allegations a month earlier during the Republican primary when Moore was running against Luther Strange—who Trump supported, and that would’ve helped the Republican Party and the Trump agenda.

Instead, Corfman waited until Moore won the primary and was pitted against a pro-partial-birth abortion, gun grabbing leftist Democrat before coming out with her salacious allegations and putting a Republican incumbent’s Senate seat in play for the Democrat Party.

It must not have occurred to the WAPO reporters to ask why a Trump-supporting Republican would turn against her party and president to aid the Democrat Party and help elect a leftist Democrat.

WAPO reporters didn’t ask Corfman a lot of probing or relevant questions. Corfman told them that Moore had phoned her not long after they’d met in 1979 and that she had talked with Moore on her phone in her bedroom.

Telephones weren’t that commonplace in 14-year-old girls’ bedrooms back in ‘79, but the WAPO reporters didn’t seem to possess that knowledge and just took Corfman’s word for it.

But the truth came out when Breitbart’s Arron Klein interviewed Corfman’s mother who said that her daughter didn’t have a phone in her bedroom at the time.

Corfman also told the Post that she had met Moore at Alcott Road and Riley Street, which she said was “around the corner” from her mother’s house in Gadsden. Once again, the WAPO reporters took Corfman’s word for it and didn’t bother to check how far away from Corfman’s mother’s house those streets were.

As it turns out, the Alcott Road and Riley Street intersection was not just “around the corner”; it was almost a mile away, and, at the time, across a major thoroughfare.

Corfman told the Post that she first met Moore while sitting on a wooden bench with her mother outside a courtroom in Etowah County, Alabama. Moore, a 32 year-old assistant district attorney at the time, had an office down the hall from the courtroom.

She said that she had gone out with Moore twice. The first time he told her she was pretty and kissed her. The second time he touched her over her bra and underpants and guided her hand over his underwear to touch his penis.

Corfman said the encounters with Moore had caused her to become increasingly reckless as a teenager. She began drinking, taking drugs, having boyfriends, and attempted suicide when she was 16 years old.

“I felt responsible. I felt like I had done something bad. And it kind of set the course for me doing other things that were bad,” she said.

To verify Corfman’s allegations, WAPO reporters looked at divorce records from February 1979 and found that Corfman’s mother did attend a hearing at the courthouse. They also confirmed that Moore had an office down the hall from the courtroom. And that’s all the verification they needed to prove that Corfman was telling the truth.

Had the WAPO reporters spent a bit more time reading the court documents, they would have found only one court case for February 1979, and it occurred February 21. In that case, Corfman’s mother voluntarily relinquished custody of Corfman to her father.

The custody documents cite Corfman’s “disciplinary and behavioral problems” as the reason for the change of custody from Corfman’s mother to her father. Both parents agreed that 14-year-old Corfman would be better off living with her father. Based on these court documents, Corfman’s behavioral problems began before her alleged encounters with Moore.

Obviously, the WAPO reporters did not carefully vet Corfman or take pains to investigate her allegations. They really weren’t looking to verify the accuracy of Corfman’s story or to determine the truth of her allegations.

Their job was to create and craft a narrative that would successfully destroy Moore and keep him out of the Senate. They needed salacious allegations to push that narrative, and Corfman’s story had to appear credible and sound believable.

The credibility of Corfman’s allegations relies on her memory of 38-year-old events and her ability to accurately recount the details surrounding those events, and thus far she’s been inaccurate about several of those details. These inaccuracies undermine her salacious allegations as well as her overall credibility and character.

The Post reported that Corfman’s had three divorces, three bankruptcies, and multiple misdemeanor charges. And she admits that “There is no one here that doesn’t know that I’m not an angel.”

And several people from Alabama who say they know her would disagree. They have taken to Facebook and Twitter to say that Corfman has a history of making false sexual allegations. According to their posts, Corfman has falsely alleged that several pastors at various churches have made sexual advances toward her.

Now that Moore accuser Beverly Young Nelson came out today and admitted that she had forged a portion of the high school yearbook she and attorney Gloria Allred used as proof of her salacious accusations against Moore, Corfman is now the last accuser standing.

WAPO’s November 9 bombshell piece was a created narrative crafted by WAPO reporters designed to destroy Roy Moore’s reputation and Senate candidacy.

Tuesday’s special election will determine whether or not they’ve succeeded. God help us if they do.

 

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