Yesterday, the right-wing and conservative media began to trumpet the narrative that
Beverly Young Nelson, who has accused Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore of
sexual assault, had "forged" the Christmas greeting that she asserts Roy Moore
entered and signed in her high school yearbook in 1977.
Here’s the Fox News story. (Note that Fox has removed the word “forged” from the headline and story but retains it in the story’s link URL.)
These "forgery" claims were based on:
1. Roy Moore's insistence that the signature was not his.
2. The date and place of the signing had been added by Ms. Nelson to the yearbook entry.
The date and place of signing were indeed added by Beverly Nelson - as she herself attested to ABC News:
Asked by ABC News about Moore and his defenders’ saying discrepancies in the inscription would damage her credibility, Nelson said, “He wrote the note and signed his name.”
“I had wrote under it where it happened at,” she added, referring to where she said they were when she said he signed the book. “I want to make this straight."
Moore has denied it’s his handwriting, and his campaign and attorney have called for her to release the yearbook so a handwriting expert can examine and evaluate it.
Nelson has not done so but insists that Moore signed her yearbook, though she made notes underneath to remind her who Moore was and when and where she said he signed the book, her lawyer, Gloria Allred, said at a news conference this afternoon.
Sure enough, Donald Trump seized on the "forgery" narrative:
President Donald Trump attacked one of the women who has accused Senate hopeful Roy Moore of sexually assaulting her when she was a teenager and he was in his 30s, mocking her over the scrutiny a note she made under Moore’s alleged signature in her high school yearbook has received.
Speaking at a rally in Pensacola, Florida, on Friday, just days ahead of the Alabama special election to fill the state’s open Senate seat, Trump brought up Young’s annotation and criticized her attorney, Gloria Allred.
“So did you see what happened today? You know, the yearbook? Did you see that? There was a little mistake made. She started writing things in the yearbook,” he said at the rally, which was held about 20 miles from the Alabama border. “Gloria Allred, anytime you see her you know something’s going wrong.”
But now that narrative has been punctured. . .
The handwriting and signature in Beverly Young Nelson's yearbook are Roy Moore's.
A handwriting expert has examined the 1977 Christmas greeting in Ms. Nelson’s yearbook and has determined that it is indeed in Roy Moore's handwriting:
A handwriting expert has concluded that the signature in then-16-year-old Beverly Young Nelson’s yearbook was, in fact, Roy Moore’s, attorney Gloria Allred said at a Friday press conference.
The lawyer, who is representing Nelson - one of several women who have accused Moore of sexual misconduct and assault - said that at Allred’s request, an expert had analyzed the GOP Alabama Senate candidate’s handwriting and signatures in public documents and compared them to the message and signature in Young’s yearbook. The expert, Arthur T. Anthony, concluded they were written by the same person.
“The conclusion is that the signature and the inscription that appears before it is Roy Moore’s,” Allred said. “Why is that relevant? Because he said he didn’t know these women. And because his supporters have been saying that wasn’t his signature.”
(Newsweek has also picked up the story.)
Moore's supporters will, of course, immediately seek to discredit this analysis.
So let's take a look at who the handwriting expert, Arthur T. Anthony, is:
Arthur T. Anthony is a Southerner from Georgia. (He’s easy to reach, too. His phone and fax numbers are published all over the Web)
Arthur T. Anthony is a member of the Southeastern Association Of Forensic Document Examiners.
Arthur T. Anthony is a member of The American Society of Questioned Document Examiners
Arthur T. Anthony is certified by the American Board of Forensic Document Examiners
The American Board of Forensic Document Examiners aims to safeguard the public interest by ensuring that anyone who claims to be a specialist in forensic document examination does, in fact, possess the necessary skills and qualifications.
The ABFDE is sponsored by the Canadian Society of Forensic Science, the American Society of Questioned Document Examiners, the Southwestern Association of Forensic Document Examiners, and the Southeastern Association of Forensic Document Examiners, and also is recognized by the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, the International Association for Identification, the Midwestern Association of Forensic Scientists, and the Mid-Atlantic Association of Forensic Scientists.
The ABFDE is the only certifying body that can claim such sponsorship and recognition.
Arthur T. Anthony has been around for a while. He's had quite a long career in his field and is cited in Huber and Hendrick's Handwriting Identification: Facts and Fundamentals for his presentation in 1988 of "Examination of Unaccustomed-Hand Signatures" to the American Academy of Forensic Sciences.
Arthur T. Anthony is not just any handwriting analyzer. He's an expert who gets called on to do validation studies of other handwriting analyzers.
(cited in Expert Bytes: Computer Expertise in Forensic Documents by Vlad Atanasiu for his "Validation Study of 'Measurement of Internal Consistencies Software', 2011)
The Beverly Young Nelson accusation against Roy Moore is no longer a "he said/she said" controversy.
Roy Moore said he never met Beverly Young Nelson. Roy Moore said he didn't sign her yearbook.
Roy Moore is a liar.
