New Accuser Says Roy Moore Tried to Rape Her at 16 and Warned 'No One Will Believe You' if She Spoke Out

A fifth woman has come forward to allege that Roy Moore, the Republican’s nominee to fill the vacant U.S. Senate seat in Alabama, sexually assaulted her when she was 16.

During a Monday afternoon press conference, Beverly Young Nelson, who’s being represented by attorney Gloria Allred, said Moore groped her and tried to force her head into his crotch in 1977, when he was a district attorney in Alabama. She also said Moore gripped her neck hard enough to leave bruises.

“I thought that he was going to rape me,” she said.

“He would compliment me on my looks, and I did not think anything of it,” she said, fighting back tears while insisting she never provoked Moore’s “flirtatious behavior” toward her when they met while she was working at a local diner.

Moore signed her high school yearbook “Love, Roy Moore D.A.” before the alleged assault, she also claimed.

Nelson said the incident began after Moore offered her a ride home from work.

“I thought he would get on the highway, but instead he drove to the back of the restaurant,” she recalled. “The area was dark and deserted,” she added, before describing how Moore allegedly locked her in the car.

Nelson also said Moore warned her to keep quiet about what transpired.

“He said, ‘You’re just a child, and I’m the district attorney of Etowah County,” Nelson said. “If you tell anyone about this, no one will believe you.”

Nelson said she later told family members, including her sister, mother, and husband-to-be about the assault. She also insisted that her decision to speak up about the incident wasn’t politically motivated, citing her support of President Donald Trump.

“I am coming forward today to let Mr. Moore know that he no longer has any power over me, and I no longer live in fear of him,” she declared.

Nelson also offered to testify under oath before a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing and urged the committee to call on Moore to defend his actions.

Shortly after the press conference, the Senate’s Republican campaign arm severed ties with Moore’s campaign.

Nelson’s sharing her story comes days after four women went on the record to The Washington Post to allege that Moore sexually propositioned them, when the most serious allegation coming from Leigh Corfman, who said Moore sexually assaulted her when she was 14. That report triggered a deluge of Republicans distancing themselves from the former Alabama Supreme Court justice’s campaign.

Ahead of the presser, Moore’s camp put out a statement attacking Allred as a “sensationalist leading a witch hunt” and linked her to “giving us Roe v. Wade which has resulted in the murder of tens of thousands of unborn babies.”

“Judge Moore is an innocent man and has never had any sexual misconduct with anyone,” the statement also said, calling him “a man of high character.”