Al.Com - Roy Moore's penchant for flirting with teen girls was "common knowledge" and "not a big secret" around Gadsden, according to some area residents.
..."These stories have been going around this town for 30 years," said Blake Usry, who grew up in the area and lives in Gadsden. "Nobody could believe they hadn't come out yet."
Usry, a traveling nurse, said he knew several of the girls that Moore tried to flirt with.
"It's not a big secret in this town about Roy Moore," he said. "That's why it's sort of frustrating to watch" the public disbelieve the women who have come forward, he said.
Colleagues and others who knew Moore told the Washington Post that he often walked alone around the Gadsden Mall.
Usry, who was a teenager at the time, remembers seeing Moore at the mall often.
"He would go and flirt with all the young girls," he said. "It'd seem like every Friday or Saturday night (you'd see him) walking around the mall, like the kids did."
Jason Nelms, who now lives in Tennessee but grew up in nearby Southside, was a regular at the mall when he was a teenager.
He recalled being told by a mall employee that they kept watch for an older guy who was known to pick up younger girls.
Greg Legat worked at the Record Bar, a music store near Sears in the mall, from 1981-1985. The store was just down from the back entrance of the mall, near the three-screen Mall Theatre. It was a popular place for parents dropping off their teens in the evenings and on weekends.
Legat, now 59, said an off-duty Gadsden police officer named J.D. Thomas told him about various people he should look out for when he was working. This was around 1981, and Thomas worked security at the mall.
One of the people was a pickpocket, he said, while another was someone prone to pick fights.
One was Roy Moore.
"I asked him, 'What did he do?'" Legat recalled. "He said, 'If you see him, let me know. I'll take care of it.'"
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