FILE – Former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore announces, in Montgomery, Ala., his run for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate, June 20, 2019. (AP Photo/Julie Bennett, File)
Embattled Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice and failed U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore lost another defamation case Wednesday when a trio of judges appointed by Donald Trump ruled that Moore’s appeal was filed too late.
Moore brought a $40 million defamation lawsuit in 2020 against conservative news outlet The Washington Examiner for a series of articles published the prior year when Moore was campaigning for Senate alleging that Moore engaged in sexual misconduct with teenage girls.
One article by Tiana Lowe began with this sentence: “Roy Moore, famous for being banned from a mall because he sexually preyed on underage girls and losing a Senate race in an R+14 state, apparently wants another round at the rodeo.” The article went on to refer to Moore as an “accused sexual assailant and pedophile,” a “comic book villain,” and a “skunk.”
Despite multiple women coming forward with similar allegations, Moore publicly denied wrongdoing and said he was the victim of a defamatory disinformation campaign. Moore demanded tens of millions of dollars to compensate him for what he said was not only defamation, but also intentional infliction of emotional distress.
Moore’s lawsuit was dismissed twice on various procedural and substantive grounds before he filed the appeal that was ultimately rejected by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit on Wednesday. A three-judge panel of the appeals court called Moore’s filing “untimely” and dismissed it in a brief order. The deadline for Moore to appeal the dismissal of his case had been May 3, according to the ruling. Moore, however, did not file his notice of appeal for more than five weeks after that deadline.
The panel included U.S. Circuit Judges Kevin Newsom, Robert Luck, and Elizabeth Branch — all of whom were appointed to the bench by Trump. Although they are both Republicans, the former president advised Moore not to run for Senate in 2020 after Moore lost what was widely considered a winnable special election three years earlier to replace former Sen. Jeff Sessions as he accepted the role of U.S. Attorney General.
In 2022, Moore lost a similar defamation lawsuit against comedian Sacha Baron Cohen over Cohen’s “pedophile detector” comedy sketch. The New York-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled that the sketch had been “clearly comedy,” and therefore not defamatory.
An attorney for Moore did not immediately respond to request for comment.
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