Becky Gray has no doubt the Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore’s accusers are telling the truth. That's because decades ago, when she was a young woman, he pursued her, she said in an interview Thursday.
“You can't make this stuff up,” she told NBC News, describing Moore’s regular visits to the Gadsden, Alabama, mall on Friday and Saturday nights in 1977.
Gray, then 22, said Moore, who was 30, asked her out and frequently dropped by the department store where she worked — overtures that were unwelcome.
"I just got to where when I saw him walk up to the door, I'd go to the dressing room," she said. "I'd say, 'Here he comes again, I'm hiding, you know if you need me come find me.'"
Gray's account was first reported by the Washington Post. She is one of several women who have accused the U.S. candidate for Senate in Alabama of unwanted sexual or romantic advances that took place when they were teenagers or young women, and he was in his early 30s. One woman alleged in an earlier Washington Post story that she was 14 when Moore initiated sexual contact. Another woman, Beverly Young Nelson, said in a press conference alongside attorney Gloria Allred Moore sexually assaulted her when she was 16.
Gray, now 62, said the harassment became so bad that she complained to her manager. According to Gray, her manager told her that Moore was subsequently banned from the mall.
Gray said that she is a Democrat and supporting Moore's political opponent, but that she is speaking up because it is the right thing to do.
“These women are telling the truth,” she told NBC News. “I don't care who you vote for. You can vote for him if you want to. You know...I'm not out here to make this a political thing. I'm out here because it's time that women came forth.”
Gray is one of two of Moore’s accusers who spoke to NBC News Thursday about their experiences with Moore, who has denied all allegations of sexual misconduct and labeled the allegations a political stunt.
Tina Johnson was in her 20s and signing over custody of her son to her mother in 1991 when she says Roy Moore groped her, an account she first shared with AL.com.
Visiting his law offices to sign forms, Johnston told NBC News that Moore grabbed her buttocks so forcefully that she said she could feel the “dents of his fingers.”
"I was so humiliated and sickened," she said of the groping.
During the meeting, she said Moore, who was married at the time, had flirted with her a lot. Fearing his power over the custody proceedings, Johnston said she was too scared to say anything.
"He asked me how old I was," she remembered. "And he was kind of surprised — I was 20-something. God, I don't remember how old I was — but he [...] got quiet a little bit, and then, 'You don't look that old.'"
AL.com reported that the custody transfer document includes Moore's signature. NBC News has not independently verified the document.
“He had power over me. He, he had me in a position where I could do nothing. And I didn’t want it, you know, I was vulnerable and he took advantage of that,” Johnson added. “And he knew it.”
