Roy Moore sues Sacha Baron Cohen for $95 million over Who Is America? prank

Sacha Baron Cohen and Roy Moore.
(Image credit: AP Photo)

Roy Moore, the failed Alabama Republican Senate candidate accused by several women of sexual misconduct when they were teenagers and he was in his 30s, is suing Sacha Baron Cohen, Showtime, and CBS over a scene in the show Who Is America? where a fake pedophile detector beeped when it was waved over Moore.

In court documents filed Wednesday, Moore and his wife, Kayla, accused the parties of intentional infliction of emotional distress, defamation, and fraud; they are asking for $95 million in punitive and compensatory damages. On the July 29 episode of Who Is America?, Cohen, playing a character named Gen. Erran Morad, told Moore the Israeli military realized that pedophiles "secrete an enzyme" that can be picked up by a special device, and after he waved the instrument over Moore, it made a warning noise.

In the lawsuit, the Moores accuse Cohen of setting the retired judge up for "ridicule" and to "severely humiliate" him on film to "promote his works and to generate large financial returns for himself." They also said they were lured to Washington, D.C., so Roy Moore "could receive an award for his strong support of Israel," and if they had known this was all for the show, "Mrs. Moore would not have agreed to travel to Washington, D.C., to accompany and honor her husband."

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia is night editor for TheWeek.com. Her writing and reporting has appeared in Entertainment Weekly and EW.com, The New York Times, The Book of Jezebel, and other publications. A Southern California native, Catherine is a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.