Moore: Turn Over The Yearbook For A Forensic Examination

At a news conference Wednesday, Moore attorney Philip Jauregui made a move that could show Moore’s innocence of Nelson’s charge.

Jauregui demanded that Nelson and her team turn over the infamous yearbook for forensic examination.

“We demand that you immediately release the yearbook to a neutral custodian,” Jauregui said, “so that we can see the ink on the page, we can see the indentations, and we can see how old is that ink. Is it 40 years old or is it a week old?”

Jauregui made a number of comments during the news conference that attempted to throw doubt on Nelson’s story and insinuated that the yearbook signature was a forgery.

“We’re still working through some things, but there are some things you need to know and we want to make you aware of,” Jauregui said.

“We… had a handwriting expert look at the evidence submitted” by Nelson Allred at a news conference in the form of the yearbook.

“Judge Moore not only has denied everything (Nelson) said before, but now flatly denies that and he says it’s not true. We have a handwriting expert… that is looking at those. …Right now our attorney is sending a letter to Gloria Allred demanding that the yearbook be released.”

“Moore is vindicated,” the expert said. “When the yearbook signature was reproduced, every Investigator in the country was waiting to see whether Moore would make the critical move: Ask for the yearbook to be examined by a forensic expert. Because the ink always indicates the year of the writing. Always. If he didn’t make the request he was toast. If he makes the request he never signed it.”

There were two inconsistencies that Jauregui focused on during the press conference, both of which were interconnected. One was the fact that Nelson claimed she had never seen Moore after he allegedly tried to assault her as a 16-year-old by locking her in a car and inappropriately touching her.

However, Moore had signed Nelson’s second divorce when he was a circuit court judge in 1999, Jauregui said — something one would assume Nelson would remember.

The other inconsistency came in how Moore signed the yearbook — as “Roy Moore, D.A.”

“Judge Moore can’t ever remember signing his name with D.A. after it, but he had seen it before,” Jauregui said.

“You know where he had seen it? When he was on the bench, his assistant, whose initials are D.A., Deborah Adams, would stamp his signature on documents and put capital D.A. That’s exactly how the signature appears on the divorce decree that Judge Moore signed.”

That’s a possible sign it could have been forged from court documents — something a forensic analysis of the ink could prove.

Since a forensic evaluation would indicate whether or it was written almost 40 years ago — as Nelson maintains — or rather recently, whether the notebook is turned over could be a telltale sign of how believable the story is.

Is it any wonder that Allred is balking at releasing the yearbook for forensic investigation?

Now, of course, this still wouldn’t exonerate Moore on all charges. Even if it turns out to be a fraud, as Moore and his lawyer are claiming, it could just be one individual piggybacking on several accusers whose very serious allegations about the former judge’s conduct could be 100 percent true. This case deserves a thorough examination of the evidence. Both the accusers and the voters of Alabama deserve no less.

But that examination should start with the most compelling piece of evidence — and that’s the yearbook Moore claims he never signed.