Moore Campaign Wants To Examine Accuser's Yearbook

BIRMINGHAM, AL - GOP Senate candidate Roy Moore's campaign wants to examine a high school yearbook one of Moore's accusers said Moore signed back when she was only 16, weeks before he allegedly assaulted her.

Beverly Young Nelson, 57, said Monday that Moore attempted to sexually assault her when in 1977. Nelson said she met Moore while working at the Old Hickory House, a restaurant off U.S. 431 in Gadsden, where Moore was a regular customer. Nelson said Moore signed her high school yearbook shortly before the the night of the alleged assault, with the inscription, "To a sweeter more beautiful girl I could not say 'Merry Christmas'...Love, Roy Moore D.A."

Moore’s attorney Phillip Jauregui said he has worked with Moore for 24 years, and during that time he has seen Moore interact with women many times — probably in “excess of 10,000 different ladies.”

“Not once — not one time have I ever seen him act even remotely inappropriate against any woman, toward any woman, he said. “Not when they were walking away. Not when he and I were in private afterwards.”

Jauregui also refuted two of Nelson's claims. One, he said Nelson has claimed she never had any contact with Moore after the evening he allegedly assaulted her. However, in Nelson's divorce in 1999, Moore was the judge who signed off on it. Jauregui had copies of the divorce decree signed by Moore. This, however, does appear to contradict the claim by Moore that he had never met Nelson and did not know her.

Moore's attorney also brought into question the high school yearbook Nelson showed at her press conference, saying he believes the notation by Moore in the book is a forgery. He said the campaign is demanding from Nelson's attorney Gloria Allred that the yearbook be examined by a handwriting expert to determine its authenticity.

Jauregui asked reporters to look closely at the pair of sevens in “1977” that come after Merry Christmas, and to compare them to the pair of sevens down below.

“Do you think it was written by the same person?” he asked.

Moore also contends there’s "no way in the world” the words Old Hickory House were his handwriting, Jauregui said.

Furthermore, after Moore’s signature are the initials “D.A.,” which Nelson and her attorney say represented were written by Moore because he was district attorney at the time. But Moore was an assistant district attorney, Jauregui said, And Moore can’t recall ever signing his name with the letters “D.A.” after it. But he had seen it before, Jauregui said, when he was on the bench.

His assistant Delver Adams stamped his signature on papers and then put “D.A.” on them, Jauregui said. That’s exactly how the signature appears on the divorce decree that Moore signed, he added.

"We are not going to draw conclusions," Jauregui said. "But we are demanding that we have our expert look at this yearbook."

Allred issued a statement saying she would hand over the yearbook if Moore agreed to a hearing and testified under oath regarding Nelson's allegations. "In the event that either or both Committees agree to conduct our requested hearing, then we would agree to have the original yearbook examined by an independent expert or experts who would obtain exemplars of Mr. Moore's handwriting during the period in question and compare that handwriting to that contained in the yearbook."

Moore, who has denied claims by four other women who claimed he pursued them sexually and romantically when they were underage and he was in his 30s, has insisted that the recent accusations against him are politically motivated and untrue.

Watch: New Accuser Claims Sex Assault By Moore In The 1970s

Photo credit: Matthew Cavannaugh/Getty Images