Alabama Residents Say Roy Moore's Pursuit of Teenage Girls Was 'Common Knowledge'“These stories have been going around this town for 30 years,” Blake Usry, who grew up in Gadsden and lives there currently, told Al.com. “Nobody could believe they hadn’t come out yet.” “Him liking and dating young girls was never a secret in Gadsden when we were all in high school,” Sheryl Porter told Al.com. “In our neighborhoods up by Noccalula Falls we heard it all the time. Even people at the courthouse know it was a well-known secret.” “He watched us girls quite openly,” added Victoria Beverstock, who said she was a 20-year-old waitress in 1992 working at a local restaurant Moore frequently dined at. “His eyes crawled over our shirts and our backsides. He was so open about it that I would try and handle his order as quickly as possible.”
http://time.com/5022752/roy-moore-gadsden-alabama/Locals Were Troubled by Roy Moore’s Interactions with Teen Girls at the Gadsden Mall
I spoke or messaged with more than a dozen people—including a major political figure in the state—who told me that they had heard, over the years, that Moore had been banned from the mall because he repeatedly badgered teen-age girls. Sources tell me Moore was actually banned from the Gadsden Mall and the YMCA for his inappropriate behavior of soliciting sex from young girls,” the independent Alabama journalist Glynn Wilson wrote on his Web site on Sunday.
Greg Legat, who is now fifty-nine and living in East Gadsden, was, from 1981 to 1985, an employee at the Record Bar, a store that was in the Gadsden Mall. Legat says that he saw Moore there a few times, even though his understanding then was that he had already been banned. “It started around 1979, I think,” Legat said. “I know the ban was still in place when I got there.” Legat recalled a Gadsden police officer named J. D. Thomas, now retired, who worked security at the mall. “J. D. was a fixture there, when I was working at the store,” Legat said. “He really looked after the kids there. He was a good guy. J. D. told me, ‘If you see Roy, let me know. He’s banned from the mall.’ ” Legat recalled Thomas telling him, “If you see Moore here, tell me. I’ll take care of him.’ ”
Two officers I spoke to this weekend, both of whom asked to remain unnamed, told me that they have long heard stories about Moore and the mall. “The general knowledge at the time when I moved here was that this guy is a lawyer cruising the mall for high-school dates,” He also said, “I heard from one girl who had to tell the manager of a store at the mall to get Moore to leave her alone.”e added, “I actually voted for Moore. I liked him at one time. But I’m basically disgusted now"
https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/locals-were-troubled-by-roy-moores-interactions-with-teen-girls-at-the-gadsden-mall
