The accusation by Beverly Young Nelson that Judge Roy Moore tried to force her into oral sex in 1977/78 is supposedly substantiated by a notation that Nelson said Moore wrote (uninvited) in her yearbook in late 1977.  See the picture below.  (This is not a very high-resolution picture, but we'll have to work with what we've got.)

The inscription has been reported by the press to read:

To a sweeter more beautiful girl I could not say "Merry Christmas"    Christmas 1977   Love,  Roy Moore  D.A.   12-22-77   Olde Hickory House.

In this picture, note that "Moore D.A.," the date 12-22-77, and "Olde Hickory House" are in a lighter-colored ink, indicating that different pens were used, with the Moore information being an add-on.  (The effect might not be as pronounced in other photos but was likely captured here due to the angle of the light on the printed page to the camera.)

To look at this inscription more closely, I rotated the text to a horizontal position, as shown here:

The lighter blue Moore stuff gets in the way, so I cut it out, as follows:

Above, you see a rubber-stamped signature of Roy Moore on Beverly Nelson's 1999 divorce papers.  The "D.A." that follows is the initials of his assistant, Delbra Adams, who applied the rubber stamp.  If you look at the lighter blue add-on "Moore D.A." and following text in the yearbook, you can see that only "Moore" had to be forged, and it is similar (but not identical) to the "Moore" in the rubber stamp, and it does not match at all the more slender and fluid cursive writing in the sentiment.  The rest of the add-on is numbers or printed text, which cut down the forger's work, but the numbers, particularly "77," are a dead giveaway that the sentiment and the lighter blue add-on text were written by two different people.

Also, does the story behind this inscription pass the "smell test"?

If you saw the yearbook of a charming waitress on the countertop, would you pick it up and start writing in it without being asked to?

For a waitress you knew only in a business environment, would you write a really mushy compliment and end it with "Love"?

Instead of signing it with only your first name, which would be appropriate with the familiarity that goes with "love", would you sign it with your full name and abbreviated title, then print (not write cursively) a date that duplicates the date in the message, followed by the location?

Would you identify yourself as a "D.A." when you are only a deputy district attorney?

Roy Moore has said, "I can tell you without hesitation this [allegation] is absolutely false.  I never did what she said I did.  I don't even know the woman. I don't know anything about her.  I don't even know where the restaurant is or was."  Considering that an addendum was forged in an effort to definitively tie Moore to this 1977 yearbook, is it possible that Moore is telling the truth?

And if he's telling the truth about this charge, is it possible he's also telling the truth about the other accusations against him by a vicious smear campaign orchestrated by Democrats and possibly also RINOs?  (Remember, he has admitted to dating very young women with the permission of their mothers, which turns some people off.)

Alabama voters, you get to decide.

Nick Chase is a retired but still very active writer, editor, and webmaster who also records classical music concerts for radio broadcast.  You can read more of his work on the American Thinker website and at contrariansview.org.