Facebook post from Mary Jo West, friend of the family of Leigh Corfman:
https://www.facebook.com/mary.j.west.589/posts/10203838739404931
I need to say something, not because I want to get political, but because I know the truth and I need to tell it.
The now-national story about Roy Moore and Leigh Corfman is true, and I have known it for over 20 years. Leigh’s mother and step-father have been friends of mine since 1992 and I know them to be the best of people. We don’t share the same political beliefs but we love and respect each other on a level deeper than politics and these wonderful friends tell the truth. They are caring and educated and accomplished people who would choose privacy over headlines any day.
Leigh’s mother told me and others “The Roy Moore Story” in the mid-1990s, because her daughter had finally unburdened herself after years of silence and that burden lay dark and deep on a mother’s shoulders and in that mother’s heart. I listened to the same details as those that are printed now, and while some of the story has faded with time, several facts are seared into my brain: 1) the attacker was attorney Roy Moore and the victim was then teenager Leigh Corfman; 2) Roy Moore got Leigh to his house under false pretenses; 3) Roy Moore made overt sexual advances to Leigh which involved Roy Moore coming out of the bathroom undressed and ready for action; 4) Leigh was terrified and had the good sense to say NO and Roy Moore accepted her NO.
During Roy Moore’s political ascent, I’ve almost called Leigh’s mother many times to suggest that they expose who Roy Moore is at his core, but I realize that this story is Leigh’s to tell… no one else’s. Why has she not exposed him before now? Perhaps because no one likes being called a liar – and she is being called that now. Perhaps because that secret was safer locked away from the pain that she must be reliving now and having to deal with all over again.
Whatever it is, it is NOT a political conspiracy. Leigh’s parents bleed Republican red as long as I have known them…and Leigh says she has voted Republican in the last three elections. While this story has the “He said, She said” element, surely the counterbalance on the scales in Leigh’s favor is US…the group of friends who knew the story before it was a headline. There was simply no reason for Leigh to make this story up when she was young and trying to figure out life. Roy Moore’s terrifying advances surely had to complicate the path that she admitted was filled with choices she would like to redo. She owned them, admirably, but I wonder if some of her young years might have been easier if she hadn’t been abused by Roy Moore when she was 14 years old, vulnerable and confused.
Perhaps it’s simply that it’s time to shout from the rooftops that this man, Roy Moore…who wants our nation’s trust and our belief that he is a good man... simply doesn’t deserve our trust. He lied yesterday when he said he had never met Leigh Corfman. Maybe he’s gotten too old to act on his abnormal urges now, but in his heart, he still knows that when he could, he scared and emotionally scarred young women and in that chamber of his heart, his blood still runs mean and cold.
I believe in redemption and forgiveness. I’ve asked for forgiveness many times in my life, but first, you have to acknowledge that you did something wrong. And yesterday Roy Moore stood staunch and unyielding that he did no wrong. Take a lie detector test, Mr. Moore. There’s nothing fake in this story. Roy Moore is lying. This story happened and it was shared mother-to-mother with no agenda other than to get it off her chest and share her agony. Women friends do that, thankfully. Leigh’s mother told me this story when Roy Moore was a nobody…now he’s just a lying somebody.
Just because Leigh Corfman didn’t come forward and tell this horrific story about a bad man until now, doesn’t mean that it never happened. It’s her story. Yes, it was a long time coming, but she told her own story on her own timeline. The swelling tides filled with the tears of victimized women’s deep dark secrets can no longer return to the sea. There are many of us standing with you, Leigh, saying “Good for You”, and “Me Too”. #NoMoore